Twelve steps for bratty celebrities

From bestweekever.tv celebrity blog: "The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Not Anonymous"

Step One: Admitting That You Are Powerless Over the Paparazzi - and That Your Public Image Has Become Unmanagable.

Step Two: Came to Believe That a Power Greater Than Our Publicist Could Restore Our Image to Good-Standing.

Step Three: Made a Decision To Turn Our Lives Over to the Will of A Luxury Rehabilitation Facility as We Understand It.

Step Four: Made a Fearless and Searching Inventory of the Pills In Our Purse.

Step Five: Admitted to the Press, and Our Fans, the Least Embarassing Aspects of Our Problems.

Step Six: Made Ourselves Ready to Have the Media Remove These Defects of Character.

Step Seven: Humbly Asked Oprah to Overlook Our Shortcomings.

Step Eight: Made a List of All Those We Had Harmed, and Became Willing To Let Them Have a Second Chance.

Step Nine: Sent Nice Text Messages to Such People Wherever Possible, Except When to do so Would Let Those Bitches Think They Won.

Step Ten: Continued to Keep A Low Profile and Relegate All the Partying to Private Locations.

Step Eleven: Sought Through Beggary and Prostitution to Improve Our Relationship With Movie Studios, Imploring only for Another Chance to Be a Famous Actress and Roles to Make That Happen.

Step Twelve: Having Had a Professional Comeback as the Result of These Steps, We Tried to Stay Away From Other Alcoholics, and to Not Party So Much We That We Have To Do All of This Again.

Comment: this satire looks at the issue from the viewpoint of the publicity-hungry celebrity, who is using her or his substance abuse, support groups, rehab, and recovery as so many hooks to get media coverage. But what about AA itself? AA doesn't protest very loudly or effectively when a lovable celebrity ignores anonymity and gets worldwide headlines for herself and for AA. It seems that some of the organizations twelve Traditions also need an update. For example:

11. Our public relations policy is based on promotion rather than results; we need always maintain the names of celebrity recruits together with our organization's name in headlines at the level of press, radio, and films, unless the celebrity is one of our famous long-time members who has had an ugly relapse, in which case we need to cloak their membership in anonymity.

That, in so many words, is the real-life policy that emerges from AA's recent handling of newcomer Lindsey Lohan and the case of its 15-year member Mel Gibson.