They tell us they go to rehab. I say no, no, no

HALLMARK, the purveyor of naff greeting cards, has expanded its range to reflect what is now known as the "new normal" - Life events that have never before had their own section in the greeting card racks. One of these new cards contains a message of support for people in rehab. It's timely, as every second sleb seems to be legging it to The Priory (or some equivalent) when the going gets a bit rough in their life or, as is usually the case these days, their career, writes Brian Boyd

Rehab in the new black. The whole idea of rehab once carried unwelcome connotations of the "funny farm"; now it's become an intrinsic part of an artist's promotional campaign. Just add it to the in-store appearances, radio interviews and TV appearances.

You hear of acts being ordered into rehab by their PR teams. It has been rumoured that a certain singer in a certain rock band, who were suffering from some negative "they're too nice and clean" press, was ordered into rehab in order to "roughen up" the band's image. Did it work? Well, the rehab story got almost as much coverage as the release of their last album.

In a secular society, slebs are the new deities and rehab is the new confessional, a public atonement of one's sins that can be spread out over six pages in OK!. Why else would people who are going through such a personal event feel the need to issue press releases about their entry into rehab? Some even arrange for paparazzi to just happen to be outside the rehab centre as they make their entrance.

Robbie's people helpfully informed us as to why he feels the need to enter rehab. A list of his daily consumption was provided to the world's media, and readers everywhere were forced into the conclusion that Williams is either 1) battling to overcome the laughably poor sales of his Rudebox album, or 2) that the daft karaoke-singer-got-lucky simply drinks too much coffee.

Rehab as a career move can work wonders. Kate Moss was captured on camera hoovering up a few lines of cocaine (super- model takes cocaine - what a shocker!) and immediately pulled the rehab stunt. Result: a multi- million triumph.

At least Doherty is honest about his many rehab stints. Last year, after checking out of the Meadows Clinic in Arizona just a few days after arriving, he said that he only put in those few days "because Kate was paying".

Tommy Lee, the Mötley Crüe drummer who is in a position to speak knowledgably about rehab, once said: "Dude, when you're in rehab, you can always see who wants to be there and who has been sent there. The second group tend to be the ones who are busy drinking their cologne, or trying to get high by smoking banana peel."

Ozzy Osbourne - who, on his first attendance at the Betty Ford Clinic, asked Mrs Ford herself (in all seriousness) where the bar was - gets directly to the point when he says that "some clinics are just Hollywood holiday camps for the wealthy". He may or may not be referring to his children, Kelly and Jack, who both went through rehab even before they had reached the legal drinking age in the US.

There is now open speculation about whether some slebs are dangerously undermining the whole idea of rehab (and what surely should be a very private matter for the person concerned) by treating it as a profile-raising exercise. Count the number of front covers Celebrity Big Brother contestant Jade Goody got out of her "Rehab Hell" story. The last time I looked, there didn't appear to be a 12-step programme out there for being a bullying harpy.

How much do some of these people really need rehab? Comedian Russell Brand was once a heroic user of Class A drugs. As he noted while presenting the Brits award show, unlike slebs such as Robbie, he simply stopped taking drugs. His remarks were treated by the press as being "unsympathetic to Robbie" - the same press that offers six-figure cheques to slebs to cough up the sordid details about their rehab hell.

Rehab is a serious matter. But as competition increases in the popular newspaper/magazine market, any aspect of a so-called celebrity's personal life, from an eating disorder to a serious addiction, can be spun into a marketable story.

The danger is that a very public stint in rehab is being used by slebs who are more concerned about the damage their behaviour is doing to their lucrative contracts than to their brains and bodies. And using rehab as a Get Out of Jail Free card is doing everyone - and most particularly those in real need of assistance - a massive disservice.

bboyd@irish-times.ie