Drug Rehab Success Story: Robert Downey Jr.

The pressures of life occur at all levels of the social ladder, and at each step there are some people that turn to drugs and alcohol in order to cope with their problems. It doesn’t matter if you work 9 to 5 everyday in downtown Boston, Massachusetts (MA), or if you’re a movie star like Robert Downey Jr., the fact remains–abusing drugs and alcohol to deal with life almost never works.

From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested numerous times on drug-related charges including cocaine, heroin and marijuana and went several times through drug treatment programs unsuccessfully. He explained his relapses by claiming to have been addicted to drugs since the age of eight, due to the fact that his father, also an addict, had been giving them to him. After five years of substance abuse, arrest, rehab, and relapse, Robert Downey, Jr. was finally ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and a return to his career. In discussing his failed attempts to control his own addictive behavior in the past, Downey told Oprah Winfrey in November 2004 that “when someone says, ‘I really wonder if maybe I should go to rehab?’ Well, uh, you’re a wreck, you just lost your job, and your wife left you. Uh, you might want to give it a shot.” He added that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he would likely be facing another stint in prison or another form of incarceration such as court-ordered rehab, “I finally said, ‘You know what? I don’t think I can continue doing this.’ And I reached out for help, and I ran with it…. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you’ll get it and you won’t take advantage of it. It’s not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems…what’s hard is to decide to actually do it.”

A lot of people have hostile feelings towards celebrities that have drug problems because of their vast wealth and fame. Try asking a local construction worker in Boston, Massachusetts (MA) how he feels about celebrity drug rehab and you’ll see that the feeling is usually the same between the masses. The general attitude towards celebrities with drug problems is no sympathy felt– because they are rich they shouldn’t have these problems, and even if they do, they have the money for the best treatment.  While the economic factor may be true the fact still remains that, even though he’s a celebrity, the story of Robert Downey Jr. proves that actually deciding to get help for addiction is the hardest part of recovery for anyone. It doesn’t matter whether you live in Boston, Massachusetts (MA) or Los Angeles, California (CA), or whether you’re a construction worker or a movie star—if you don’t truly want to stop drinking or doing drugs, you’re not going to. If you take a look at your life in the mirror and you come to the realization that you need help, contact Seabrook today. Seabrook is an internationally recognized private and exclusive inpatient drug rehab and alcoholism detoxification treatment center who has achieved an elite CARF accreditation status, ensuring that rehab patients receive the highest quality treatment. Seabrook is located in rural Bridgeton, New Jersey (NJ)—roughly a 6 hour drive or about an hour flight from Boston, Massachusetts (MA).  When you’re ready to commit to rehabilitation, Seabrook is here to help you.