Jonathan Ernst
Former guests on Dr. Phil who were battling alcoholism and addiction say they were given alcohol and Xanax before their interviews, and one person said she was even directed by a staff member on the show to find heroin for her detoxing niece. The shocking allegations reported in STAT and the Boston Globe were denied by the show, on which host Phillip McGraw portrays himself as a savior for the addicted. Former Survivor winner Todd Herzog said that he was sober when he arrived at Dr. Phil’s studio but given a bottle of Smirnoff vodka in his dressing room and handed a Xanax after drinking all of it to “calm his nerves.” “It’s a callous and inexcusable exploitation,” Jeff Sugar told STAT and the Globe. Sugar, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Southern California, added: “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.”