The Pasadena Recovery Center from “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”

One location that I stalked with my good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna, Beth, Melissa, Kim, and Sandy, while they were in town visiting from Ohio last week was the Pasadena Recovery Center from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.  And while I had never before actually seen an episode of the VH1 reality series, which just finished up its fifth season, Beth is a MAJOR die-hard fan of it and the treatment facility was the Number One location on her Southern-California-To-Stalk list.  So after grabbing lunch at The Slaw Dogs – a Pasadena-area hot dog restaurant that has quickly become my most recent culinary obsession – the six of us headed on over to North Raymond Avenue to check out the famous rehabilitation center in person.

Before doing research on the Pasadena Recovery Center for today’s post, I had incorrectly assumed that it had been founded by Celebrity Rehab star/executive producer Dr. Drew Pinsky, but as it turns out I do not think that the “Silver Fox” (as Chelsea Handler likes to call him) has much to do with the place outside of the filming the show.  In reality, the facility was started in 2001 by Dr. Lee Bloom, a former psychiatrist for the United States Air Force.  When Dr. Bloom passed away in 2008, his son Michael and daughter Alison took over the center’s management and they continue to run it today.

I am very happy to report that the Pasadena Recover Center looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on TV.  Before writing today’s post, I sat down to watch a few episodes of the series and found it to be highly addictive (pun intended).  It is a mesmerizing, compassionate look into the face of addiction and has made me more understanding of certain celebrities who I previously thought were pretty useless.  Bai Ling’s storyline, for example, was especially heartbreaking and, where I had before thought the actress was out-of-her-mind crazy, after hearing about her childhood I feel nothing but sorrow and empathy towards her.  That poor, poor woman.  It is amazing she is even able to stand after what she lived through.  Amy Fisher, on the other hand, is (in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion) nothing but a heartless, sociopathic, spoiled brat who makes me want to put my fist through the TV, but I digress.  Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is a fabulous show and I highly recommend checking it out.

All five seasons of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew have taken place at the Pasadena Recovery Center, during which participants move into the holistic treatment facility for 21 days in the hopes of beating their various addictions.

The real life interior of the facility also appears regularly on the show.  You can check out some photographs of that interior on the Pasadena Recovery Center’s official website here.

The backyard and pool area also show up quite frequently on the series, although there are, sadly, no images of those spaces featured on the facility’s website.  Besides Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, the Pasadena Recovery Center also appeared on the WE tv series Secret Lives of Women.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Pasadena Recovery Center from Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is located at 1811 North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena.  Please remember that it is a working rehabilitation facility, with actual patients whose privacy needs to be respected at all times.  You can visit the Pasadena Recovery Center’s official website here.