Celebrities and substance abuse

DEFINITION: The news media has documented myriad cases of substance abuse among celebrities, with negative impacts ranging from career loss to relationship problems to death.

Substance Abuse Prevalence

Although there have been no scientific studies of how often addictions occur among celebrities, popular news sources frequently report celebrity arrests for drunk driving, drug possession, public intoxication, and other criminal offenses related to substance abuse. Many celebrities and public figures, including Betty Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Melanie Griffith, Drew Barrymore, Keith Urban, Eminem, Ben Affleck, and Lindsay Lohan, to name just a few, have openly shared their personal stories of struggle with addictions in interviews and autobiographies.

Substance abuse has also been linked to the deaths of many celebrities. Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Anna Nicole Smith, Janice Joplin, and Heath Ledger are a few examples of celebrities whose deaths involved drug or alcohol overdoses or otherwise harmful combinations of legal and illegal substances.

Other celebrities, such as Lindsay Lohan, Demi Lovato, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey, Jr., and Charlie Sheen, have been in the public eye because of their addictions and substance-abuse-related behaviors. One television reality show, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (which aired from 2008 to 2012), documented the lives of celebrities seeking inpatient hospital treatment for a variety of addictions. The show ended after its sixth season following the death of a fifth former cast member, and it is understood as damaging and exploitative instead of beneficial.

Possible Causes

By the nature of their work, celebrities are subject to public attention and scrutiny. Often, this attention and scrutiny extend beyond celebrities’ work into their personal lives. In 1972, psychologists Thomas Duval and Robert Wicklund proposed the self-awareness theory, a framework that may explain why some celebrities abuse substances to cope with excessive attention.

According to self-awareness theory, when people engage in activities that draw attention to themselves, they often evaluate themselves negatively because their lives do not live up to some high internal standard. When this happens, these persons will likely experience a drop in self-esteem. Researchers who tested the self-awareness theory found that people who are more self-focused, as many celebrities can be, are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Persons with higher degrees of self-focus also are more likely to have long-lasting negative moods. People may cope with this discomfort by trying to behave in ways that match their internal standards, or they may look for ways to avoid or escape a focus on the self. Some of these escapes include substance use, gambling, sex, shopping, and other addictive behaviors.

Psychologists Jay Hull and Richard Young documented this phenomenon in a 1983 study in which they asked one hundred twenty men aged twenty-one years and older to complete a fake IQ test and a real measure of self-consciousness. The researchers then gave the men fake feedback about their IQ test results, telling them they had scored poorly.

Afterward, the men were asked to participate in a wine-tasting experiment in which they could moderate the amount of wine they consumed. The researchers found that men who were highly self-conscious and received negative feedback on the fake IQ test drank larger quantities of wine than the men who were less self-conscious. These findings support the theory that highly self-conscious people’s alcohol consumption increases in response to a reduction in their self-esteem. It follows that celebrities, whose life experiences force them to be highly self-conscious, also may engage in heavy substance use after receiving negative feedback, such as poor reviews or seeing themselves featured in a tabloid.

Additionally, researchers Lynne Cooper, Michael Frone, and Marcia Russell conducted an online survey. They found that both adolescents and adults reported using alcohol both to cope with negative emotions and to increase positive emotions. Additionally, psychological research studies have found that people report increased or inflated self-esteem after consuming alcohol. This research suggests that celebrities may abuse substances as a means to artificially increase their self-perception.

Celebrities also may be likely to abuse substances because of norms of substance use and abuse in celebrity culture. Anthropological research indicates that throughout the world, people, more often than not, tend to conform to the accepted social practices and behaviors of their cultures; celebrities are no exception. Young or emerging celebrities may be socialized into a culture in which substance abuse is common, and these celebrities may then later take part in that cultural norm and encourage other celebrities to do the same.

Negative Social Effects

Several research studies have documented that people imitate behaviors they observe in others. In a famous study of observational learning, psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues Dorothea Ross and Sheila Ross showed children a film of an adult punching, kicking, beating, and insulting a doll. Children who had observed this aggressive behavior were significantly more likely to engage in aggressive play with the doll, imitating the adult's behaviors and engaging in new aggressive behaviors.

Many other psychological studies have replicated these results, showing that people learn desirable and undesirable behaviors through watching others. Observing celebrities engage in substance abuse increases the likelihood that members of the public will imitate this behavior.

Other research in psychology suggests that celebrities are particularly influential role models because they have many factors that increase the likelihood of others selecting them as models for observational learning. These factors include attention, high social status, attractiveness, and, in some cases, similarity in age, gender, or other characteristics. In the twenty-first century, social media influencers have become increasingly famous. According to the United Nations, many of these celebrities glamorize drug use. Additionally, celebrities who abuse substances often face less serious legal and financial consequences for their behavior than do noncelebrities. Therefore, those who are observing celebrity behaviors may be more likely to abuse substances themselves, as they do not see their role models experiencing significant negative consequences for their behavior.

As the twenty-first century progresses, increased understandings of celebrities’ heightened susceptibility to substance abuse disorder continue, and, in many ways, their motivations are similar to noncelebrities; they are just heightened due to the visibility of a public figure's life. Noncelebrities may develop substance abuse disorder due to stress and pressure. Celebrities may also experience stress and pressure. However, they must deal with these issues in the public eye. The accompanying anxiety and depression associated with maintaining one’s public image may lead them to seek substances as a coping mechanism, just like noncelebrities. The influence of peers in the entertainment industry may be especially hard to overcome, especially for younger celebrities, which is another issue that mirrors the general population. Celebrities have far easier access to substances and are often thrown into a life that glamorizes substance abuse as well. Finally, just as with noncelebrities, mental health issues and specific personality traits may also affect the frequency with which celebrities abuse substances. Again, these motivations mirror general society, but they are heightened because of the visibility of a celebrity’s life. 

Bibliography

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Duval, Thomas S., and Robert A. Wicklund. A Theory of Objective Self-Awareness. New York: Academic, 1972.

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