Dr. Phil says he rescues people from addiction. Others say his show puts guests' health at risk

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LOS ANGELES — He had won “Survivor,” the reality TV test of grit and
strength. But Todd Herzog was so drunk when he appeared on the “Dr.
Phil” show in 2013 that he had to be carried onto the set and lifted
into a chair.

“I’ve never talked to a guest who was closer to death,” show host
Phillip McGraw declared on camera.

TV viewers, however, didn’t see the setup for this shocking scene.
Herzog, who was battling alcoholism, told STAT and the Boston Globe
that he was not intoxicated when he arrived at the Los Angeles
studio. In his dressing room, he said, he found a bottle of Smirnoff
vodka. He drank all of it. Then someone handed him a Xanax, he said,
telling him it would “calm his nerves.”

America’s best-known television doctor presents himself as a
crusader for recovery who rescues people from their addictions — and
even death. But in its pursuit of ratings, the “Dr. Phil” show has
put at risk the health of some of those guests it purports to help,
according to people who have been on the show and addiction experts.
Guests have been left without medical help as they face withdrawal
from drugs, a STAT/Boston Globe investigation has found, and one
person said she was directed by a show staff member to an open-air
drug market to find heroin for her detoxing niece.

While McGraw has been buffeted by controversy and lawsuits since he
broke out as a celebrity on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” two decades
ago, the show’s handling of guests seeking treatment for substance
abuse disorders has largely escaped scrutiny.

McGraw declined an interview request through a “Dr. Phil” show
representative. Martin Greenberg, a psychologist who serves as the
show’s director of professional affairs, said guests have never been
provided alcohol or directed to where to buy drugs.

In a statement, he denied Herzog was left alone with a bottle of
vodka in his dressing room, or given Xanax. “We do not do that with
this guest or any other,” he wrote. He called the allegations
“absolutely, unequivocally untrue.”

https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/28/dr-phil-addiction/

“Dr. McGraw has a very strong sense of trying to not exploit
people,” Greenberg said in an earlier interview. “Now it is a
television show. These people volunteer to come on. They beg to come
on. And he tries to treat them with respect … and to give them the
opportunity to get help if they want to do that. It’s not a
complicated formula.”

But in interviews, show guests and their families described a
different reality.

Guests confront a painful and potentially dangerous detox as they
wait up to 48 hours in hotel rooms for their scheduled taping,
leading some to look for illegal drugs. One guest bought heroin with
the knowledge and support of show staff, according to a family
member. Another guest, who was pregnant, was filmed by a show
staffer while searching for a dealer on Skid Row in L.A.

“It’s a callous and inexcusable exploitation,” said Dr. Jeff Sugar,
assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of
Southern California. “These people are barely hanging on. It’s like
if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat, and instead
of throwing them an inflatable doughnut, you throw them an anchor.”

The “Dr. Phil” show said staff members have no right to detain
guests or direct or restrict their behavior, and may not even know
they are in danger of withdrawal or overdose.

“Addicts are notorious for lying, deflecting and trivializing. But,
if they are at risk when they arrive, then they were at risk before
they arrived,” Greenberg said in the statement. “The only change is
they are one step closer to getting help, typically help they could
not have even come close to affording.”

The show’s addiction segments aren’t just compelling TV and good for
driving huge ratings: They also serve to boost related businesses.
Treatment center operators are being offered valuable endorsements
in exchange for buying a new virtual reality product that features
“Dr. Phil” offering tips and coping skills to people in treatment.

Centers that buy “Dr. Phil’s Path to Recovery” have been promoted on
the “Dr. Phil” show as well as a second program called “The Doctors”
that is owned by the production company founded by McGraw and his
son, Jay.

Many guests are sent to Origins Behavioral HealthCare, a company so
closely associated with the show that some in the field refer to it
as the company that Dr. Phil built. So intertwined are the two that
Origins, in a Florida licensing report, bragged that the company has
“a reputation that even Dr. Phil recognizes.”

Origins, which was founded in 2009, lists McGraw’s graduate school
mentor, Frank Lawlis, as a member of its executive team. Lawlis has
been a key adviser to the “Dr. Phil” show since its inception. His
biography on the Origins website indicates Lawlis “consults with Dr.
Phil about potential guests, and oversees resources for the guests
as they leave the show.”

The show said, through Greenberg, that Origins is one of many
treatment centers used as a resource and that the show doesn’t
consider Lawlis’ role with Origins a conflict of interest. Greenberg
said “no money changes hands” between the show and Origins.

“It’s a callous and inexcusable exploitation.”
Jeff Sugar, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry,
University of Southern California

On television, McGraw, 67, plays the role of a tough-love, no-
nonsense adviser with a southern twang and a dogged determination to
help his guests. He promises to “haunt them to the ends of the
earth” once he gets involved in their lives. Segments where guests
resist his advice often feature harangues from McGraw, prodded by
cheering from his studio audience.

Many of his guests view “Dr. Phil” as a savior. Parents come to him
begging for help saving their children’s lives. For many treatment
centers, his endorsement brings patients and legitimacy; they offer
guests free care in return for the show’s promotion. For viewers,
McGraw offers hope. Some pepper the show’s Facebook page with their
own requests for help, leaving sad stories and phone numbers where
they can be reached.

The show seeks to “educate, inform, inspire and entertain our
viewers,” Greenberg said. He said hundreds have emailed the show
“thanking us for helping them face or address an issue that either
they, or a family member might be struggling with.” The American
Psychological Association presented McGraw its presidential citation
in 2006, saying his “work has touched more Americans than any other
living psychologist.”

The show has also made him wealthy: McGraw, according to Forbes, is
the highest-paid daytime TV personality, earning $79 million last
year.

McGraw holds a doctorate in psychology, but has not been a licensed
psychologist since 2006, when he let his Texas license expire. He
became “Dr. Phil” after he worked with Oprah as a consultant when
she was unsuccessfully sued by cattle ranchers in Texas for bad-
mouthing the beef industry. He started appearing on her show, and
then, in 2002, launched his own.

His show has been a subject of unsuccessful lawsuits by guests, and
his forays into the lives of celebrities Britney Spears and Shelley
Duvall have sparked outcries because of concerns they were
exploited.

Some of McGraw’s own employees have raised alarms about the
treatment of guests. In one lawsuit filed last year against McGraw
and his production company in Los Angeles Superior Court, a former
segment director, Leah Rothman, accused McGraw of false imprisonment
for trapping employees in a room to threaten them over leaks to the
media. Rothman also alleged that guests complained that their lives
were “ruined.” One guest attempted suicide after the show, according
to a deposition with another staff member.

McGraw denied the allegations. Rothman’s attorney said the case was
settled and dismissed in September. A representative of McGraw said
Rothman was a “disgruntled” employee, and noted that McGraw’s
production company is currently suing her in federal court.
Rothman’s attorney, however, said she was a hard-working and long-
time employee who is “vigorously defending herself” in the federal
case.

“Plaintiff’s experience with Dr. Phil was that his primary interest
was not about helping people on the show, but rather, done for the
sake of ratings and making money,” says Rothman’s suit. “Dr. Phil
often embarrassed guests on his show in their darkest hour, leaving
the staff to pick up the pieces of the broken people who had put
their trust in Dr. Phil.”

When camera crews arrived unannounced at Todd Herzog’s apartment in
Utah in 2013, he had no idea what was happening. The footage that
later aired on “Dr. Phil” shows him sitting bewildered and barefoot
on his couch, surrounded by his family and a two-person intervention
team dispatched by the show after it was contacted by his family.

“What … is this?” he asked, his speech slurred and halting. “Can
someone please tell me?”

Herzog’s hands were shaking and he said he was afraid he was going
to die. One of the interventionists explained that Dr. Phil wanted
to meet with him. Herzog was a flight attendant when he won
“Survivor” at age 22 – and its $1 million prize. But his life
spiraled downward after that, and he said, his alcoholism
intensified while dating someone who was a heavy drinker.

After the show flew him to L.A. and put him up in a hotel, Herzog
said he detoxed in his room over about two days. In a recent
interview in Salt Lake City, he said he was sober when he walked
into his dressing room on the set, and intoxicated on vodka and
Xanax when he emerged. Herzog’s father, Glen, confirmed in an
interview that his son was sober when he arrived at the studio to
tape the show.

“Today, I had an entire bottle, like a liter, of vodka,” Todd Herzog
told McGraw on stage. When Dr. Phil breathalyzed him in front of the
studio audience, Herzog blew a .263 — more than three times the
legal limit to drive.

“You know, I get that it’s a television show and that they want to
show the pain that I’m in,” Herzog said in the interview. “However,
what would have happened if I died there? You know, that’s
horrifying.”

The combination of alcohol and Xanax can be deadly, said Dr. Maureen
Boyle, the chief scientific officer for the Addiction Policy Forum,
an advocacy organization for patients and families. No one should
detox from serious alcohol addiction without medical supervision,
she said, as withdrawal can cause seizures.

“The important thing here, this isn’t a TV drama,” she said. “This
is someone’s life.”

The show, through Greenberg and a lawyer, offered a series of
shifting explanations over two weeks regarding the medical oversight
of guests when they come out to L.A.

In the interview, Greenberg said the show was not a medical
facility, and did not have a responsibility to monitor guests.

“No, of course not, it’s a television show,” he said.

After STAT and the Globe sent detailed questions about Herzog’s case
and others, however, the show, in a lengthy response signed by
Greenberg, said guests with substance abuse problems are medically
supervised “100% of the time.” The show said that any time a guest
is likely to need inpatient rehabilitation, medical personnel from a
treatment center are flown to L.A. “to supervise and manage any
medical needs.”

Herzog, the response said, was “medically supervised the entire time
he was involved with tapings of ‘Dr. Phil.’” The supervision,
according to the show, included a nurse-practitioner flying with him
to L.A., a nurse sitting up with him during the night, and a medical
professional from a treatment center who “happened to be in LA at
the time.” The show declined to name any medical personnel.

Then this week, Greenberg, through the lawyer, responded to follow-
up questions by qualifying his earlier statements about medical
supervision: “We mean 100% of guests agreeing to treatment. It does
not mean that a guest is being monitored 100% of the time,” he
wrote. He noted that “substance abusers adopt very clever means” to
obtain alcohol or drugs, and “we cannot control what we cannot
control.”

The director of the treatment center where Herzog agreed to go for
help at the conclusion of the show said no one from that facility
monitored Herzog while he was involved in the taping of the show.

“I was watching them walk him out severely intoxicated,” said Steve
Thomason, who was then the executive director of The Arbor in
Georgetown, Texas. “That was the first time I ever laid eyes on
him.”

Thomason said he and his medical staff couldn’t offer medical
supervision in California because they are licensed in Texas, and
the person being monitored must first give consent to treatment and
be on the premises of the treatment facility.

He said he was so upset by the condition of Herzog on the “Dr. Phil”
show and the manner in which the show was conducted that he never
had anything to do with it again.

“I honestly regret having ever done it,” Thomason said.

Other treatment centers contacted by STAT and the Globe similarly
said they are barred in most cases from providing the kind of
medical supervision described by the show.

Origins, which has treated scores of people who have appeared on
“Dr. Phil,” provides a nurse to accompany a patient only on the
airplane ride from Los Angeles to one of the company’s addiction
treatment facilities in Texas or Florida, said chief executive Drew
Rothermel.

Thomason also said he talked to Herzog’s mother after the show, and
she told him her son was sober when he arrived at the studio that
day.

Herzog’s mother, Shirley Herzog-Keeler, declined to comment but said
the show helped her son get well. “I have nothing to say but good
things” about the show, she said. “We were on the show to help
Todd.”

Herzog said the show gave him opportunities to enter treatment,
which he is thankful for. He said he was recently contacted by a
show producer and asked to write a letter thanking McGraw for his
help, which he did.

“I’m grateful in a lot of ways for the show. For getting me help in
the nicest places in the country. That’s a gift right there,” he
said. “There are some things about the show that I don’t like, and
that I don’t think are real. … I should have been in the hospital,
in that sense. There should not be liters of vodka in my dressing
room.”

“We cannot control what we cannot control.”
Martin Greenberg, director of professional affairs for
Dr. Phil show

Family members of two other show guests said that they had no
medical support and, in one guest’s case, that staff members
allegedly helped her get drugs.

Marianne Smith’s niece, Jordan, appeared on the show in 2012, in an
episode called “Young, Reckless, and Enabled.” Smith said she
contacted the show to help her niece break her heroin addiction.
Smith said that when she, Jordan, and Jordan’s mother arrived in Los
Angeles from out of state, Jordan began going through withdrawal.
Smith said she and Jordan’s mother were concerned for her well-
being, and told a show producer she needed heroin.

“They told us where to go, Skid Row,” Smith said. “I was so scared.”

The producer also told them not to say who suggested the trip, Smith
said. She did not remember the name of the producer.

One reason Smith said she and her sister were so panicked about
Jordan’s situation is they had no medical assistance for her. “We
never had anyone,” she said. “It was just the three of us girls the
entire time.” She said the three were in L.A. for two nights before
appearing on the show.

When asked about the experience described by Smith, Greenberg issued
a denial: “We could go on and talk about Jordan L. or ten others,”
he said. “Same reality. All had medical supervision.”

Joelle King-Parrish brought her 28-year-old daughter Kaitlin from
Lansing, Mich., to the “Dr. Phil” show in October of last year for
help with her heroin addiction. Kaitlin was six months pregnant, and
King-Parrish said she assumed that when they touched down, there
would be some kind of medical supervision — if Kaitlin went into
withdrawal, it could endanger the life of her unborn baby.

But they were alone when Kaitlin began to detox. King-Parrish, who
is a registered nurse, said staff members told her to “take care of
it.” So she took her daughter to the hospital.
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After four hours, Kaitlin left without receiving treatment. The
producer texted to say she should stay at the hospital. But Kaitlin
would not, and King-Parrish was terrified the baby would die if her
daughter did not get medicine or drugs.

King-Parrish and Kaitlin went to the “Dr. Phil” studio, where
another show staffer joined them. All three got into a cab headed
for Skid Row.

The staffer shot video, which later aired on the show. In it, King-
Parrish tells the camera, “I am scared to death right now.” The
camera follows Kaitlin from behind as she walks towards homeless
encampments. King-Parrish said Kaitlin was gone for about a half-
hour while she shot up heroin.

The trip made for riveting television. Experts say it could have
harmed Kaitlin or her baby.

“That is incredibly deadly. You never know what you’re getting in a
single dose,” said Boyle, adding that Kaitlin should have been under
medical care the moment she landed in L.A.

Greenberg said that show officials agreed to do Kaitlin’s story only
if “her mother agreed to be 100% responsible for managing her
daughter’s health and possible withdrawal.” The show’s motivation
for doing the story, Greenberg said, was to get Kaitlin’s unborn
child out of danger.

The staffer that filmed the Skid Row trip, Greenberg said, “simply
documented the natural behavior she observed, which would have
occurred whether she was there or not.”

The statement said it was unfair to highlight the experiences of a
few guests out of thousands who have appeared on the “Dr. Phil”
show.

“Few people contact us just to let us know how well things are
going,” the show stated. “The fact you can ‘cherry pick’ three, or
thirty, or three hundred guests for that matter, who seek to blame
others for their plight or struggle in life, is not the least bit
surprising.”

One guest who credits the “Dr. Phil” show with saving her life is
Niki Dietrich, who was eight months pregnant and addicted to heroin
when she appeared on an episode last year. She said she was living
in an abandoned house with her boyfriend, and prostituting herself
for money to buy drugs.

She was sent to an Origins facility after her appearance, and is now
sober. The 28-year-old said she is working at a treatment facility
and trying to get custody of her daughter.

“That was like a miracle,” Dietrich said of her appearance. “They
hooked it up, for sure. The ‘Dr. Phil’ show, I have nothing bad to
say about that experience.”

Even after intensive treatment for opioid and alcohol addiction,
relapse is common. But the show does not track the success or
failure rate of guests for whom it arranges treatment.

“Why, why, why on earth would they?” Greenberg said, adding that the
show is not the organization providing treatment.

After his first appearance, Herzog went for treatment but then
resumed drinking. When he returned to the show for a third time, in
2014, he found vodka placed in his dressing room again, he said, but
this time he was wary of becoming incoherent. He drank some but not
all of the bottle. The show denied that vodka was left in Herzog’s
room.

Herzog’s last appearance was late last year, and this time, he said,
he initiated it. He said the first three times, he felt coerced into
appearing. The last time, he wanted the free treatment that guests
are offered by centers appearing on the show.

“I know this time … I wanted help, I wanted to get sober, because I
was dying,” the now-32-year-old Herzog said in an interview. This
appearance, he was with a handler who supervised him closely before
taping, giving him a shot of alcohol to hold off seizures, Herzog
said. He has no memory of what happened on stage.

He knows from watching the show that he was brought out in a
wheelchair, then suffered some sort of medical distress.

As staff members rushed to help him, a camera followed him off the
set.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/28/dr-phil-addiction/

Herzog said this week that he is sober. He works at a restaurant in
Utah; he’s reconnected with friends and family; and he’s dating
someone.

“I’m so much happier now. I mean, so much happier,” he said. “I’m
living again.”

Jordan also went to treatment after her appearance, but she didn’t
get well, her aunt said.

“It was a complete bust,” Smith said of the “Dr. Phil” show. “Didn’t
help at all. Just ratings for him. People are going to him, like us,
with serious, life-threatening problems looking for help. It just
doesn’t happen.“

McGraw promised Kaitlin “the best help, in my opinion, in the United
States,” and, on stage, guaranteed that she would be in treatment
until her baby was born. Kaitlin left against medical advice after
15 days. Her baby was born addicted in January, King-Parrish said,
and went into foster care.

“The treatment facility is not a locked ward, and she is a hard-core
heroin addict. That’s what they do,” Greenberg said in his
statement. “We deal with people in the real world.”

The show had the family back, after King-Parrish wrote them a letter
saying she believed their appearance had been “for ratings and not
help.” Kaitlin was sent to treatment a second time but kicked out
for noncompliance, King-Parrish said.

Today, Kaitlin is homeless and she was recently admitted to the
hospital with liver failure, her mother said. Kaitlin did not
respond to requests for comment.

“Poor, middle class, high class. Rich. It doesn’t matter. Heroin
will take it and kill you. And that’s what I have to make myself
know, that that’s probably going to be Kaitlin’s end,” King-Parrish
said.

She has resigned herself to what she fears is coming.


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Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.