Actress Lindsay Lohan first appeared in major Hollywood movies at a young age. She appeared to have a promising film career ahead of her, but as she reached her late teens and early 20s, things started to spiral out of control. Before long, her work on the silver screen came to be overshadowed by seemingly nonstop tabloid news headlines on the recurring subject of her substance abuse and addiction. A series of accidents, ugly fights and arrests have led to a number of stints in rehab, none of which seem to have worked; every time she checks out of rehab, it is apparently only a matter of time before the paparazzi are snapping new photos of the starlet heading to court to answer criminal charges. In March of this year, she pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and providing false information to a police officer after causing a car accident in the summer of 2012. Her sentence included 90 days in a lockdown rehab center, 30 days of community service, and 18 months of psychotherapy.
According to FOX News, Lohan recently checked into the Betty Ford Center, the rehab clinic located in the desert east of Los Angeles. Betty Ford is where the rich and famous have traditionally gone to quit drugs or alcohol, and given Miss Lohan’s own status as a celebrity it seemed like a natural fit that she would choose that location. Unfortunately, the most recent development in the ongoing drama of this young woman’s turbulent life is that she is now reported to have checked out of the Betty Ford clinic early and has transferred to Cliffside Malibu, in the Santa Monica mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Why did she feel the need to leave ahead of schedule? According to inside reports, a visitor who came to see another patient snuck in some OxyContin pills and proceeded to pass them out to several of the young women in the center. Lohan is said to have resisted the temptation, but was so upset over the situation that she decided to switch to the Malibu rehab center.
Apparently, several of the girls who took the opiate painkiller have also voluntarily checked themselves out of the facility. According to a statement from the staff at Betty Ford, outside visitors are only allowed into the center during Sunday afternoon family visitation hours, and there is no procedure in place to screen them to ensure that no one is bringing in drugs or alcohol.
Should Drug Rehab Centers have Security Checkpoints
Just as the Betty Ford Center does not have a security screening system in place, the same is true of a large percentage of rehab treatment facilities throughout the United States. Ideally, anyone who cares enough to come and visit a recovering addict in rehab will have the person’s best interests at heart and will not sabotage the rehab process by sneaking drugs in, but unfortunately this does happen, as is illustrated by the recent case at Betty Ford.
Some centers, however, do take the precaution of checking visitors before they are allowed into the facility. As one example, Narconon Arrowhead, the flagship Narconon center located in Oklahoma, has recently completed a series of upgrades that includes establishing a security office. Visitors are required to pass through this point so that they can be checked to verify that they do not have drugs or alcohol on their person. In this way, the Narconon staff is able to be that much more certain that they are helping their patients to stay sober during their stay at the facility and to consolidate the gains they make. Miss Lohan has evidently made a good decision in choosing to leave an addiction treatment center that does not take every precaution to ensure that the facility is drug-free. Anyone else looking for a rehab program would do well to inquire about this point to ensure that it will not be an issue during their own stay at the center.