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Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, and Mischa Barton. A few of coaching’s most famous clients—whether you like it or not.
These troubled stars have each reportedly turned to “sober coaches” to help them maintain their sobriety—and sometimes, to satisfy court orders.
Lohan, who was sentenced to jail in July for violating probation on a DUI charge, this week completed two weeks in jail and another 23 days in court-ordered in-patient rehabilitation. According to published reports, a sober coach is part of Lohan’s package of care and containment upon release that also includes random drug and alcohol testing.
So what, exactly, does a sober coach do for someone like this? Depends on who you talk to.
With their connections to celebrity and tabloid media, the sober coach has become a cliché—a kind of indulgent babysitter for the rich, famous and addicted.
Leah Epstein writes about women and alcohol on the blog Drinking Diaries, and she dissected the celebrity sober coach, describing the job as “a person you pay to help you stay sober after you leave rehab.” Noting that some sober coaches can cost $1,800 a day for always-at-your-side service, Epstein concluded: “What I don’t get is that (Alcoholics Anonymous) has always offered sober coaches—for free! They’re called ‘sponsors,’ and they are AA veterans with years of sobriety under their belts.”
Michelle Hirschman says the service she provides is anything but a high-priced companion to steer you away from temptation.
“If the client is going to maintain sobriety and/or their mental health issues, they need to learn how to be on their own and learn the skills to do that,” said Hirschman, who calls her business My Sober Coach. “This is the work I do…coach clients how to live one day at a time, one week at a time in a way that makes them feel good and decreases chances of relapse.”
Hirschman, a licensed clinical social worker as well as a sober coach, differentiates between sober coaching and people who are hired as “sober companions,” saying in many cases, celebrities have sober companions, but not coaches.
“Because celebrities oftentimes have to race back to the movie set after entering a 30 day residential treatment center, they often don’t go with clinical recommendations which would often be a sober living home or an outpatient program,” said Hirschman.
Instead, a “sober companion” tags along 24 hours a day, driving the client from home to work, running interference with potentially risky friends or family, and even searching homes for drugs and alcohol.
“Oftentimes, sober companions do not have any credentials other then their own personal recovery,” said Hirschman. “Unfortunately, I have heard a lot of horror stories, so people have to be very careful when choosing such a sober companion. The sober coaching work that I do and what other recovery coaches do, if they are either certified in coaching or have social work degrees or other clinical degrees, is to work with people two to three times per week for an hour and really empower them, to begin to utilize skills they have learned in treatment.”
When the actor Charlie Sheen was described as working with a sober coach on the set of his television show “Two and a Half Men” earlier this year, commenters mocked the move—one saying “that’s not a coach, it’s called a nanny.”
Bloggers also made fun of Mischa Barton’s supervision by a studio-hired sober coach, describing the work as an easy, entertaining job: “Where can I sign up? I’d love to babysit a crazy starlet,” wrote blogger Lisa Timmons on the website Socialite Life.
Sober and recovery coaches have heard the jokes and try to make clear they aren’t high-priced babysitters—or even round-the-clock AA sponsors.
A New York-based sober coaching company, Sober Champion, takes the critics head on: “Forget what you read in gossip columns and celebrity magazines. A few bad-boy & bad-girl actors paraded by publicists & paparazzi do not tell the true story of our field.”
The company’s services, described on the Sober Champion website, are focused on recovery and building a new life: “A Sober Coach helps support the individual in catching up with missed time and building & reinforcing application of life skills which either were forgotten or never learned. Individual goals are set weekly with each client to fit his/her personal strengths and challenges. At Sober Champion, we use an empowerment approach is used to build self-esteem and confidence.”
That’s not to say that Sober Champion won’t provide 24-hour sober companion services. They will.
And Michelle Hirschman will refer clients to a sober companion at times, too. “I actually think that sober companions can be very useful for some on a temporary basis,” she said, such as a film star heading out of the country for a week or a month. “But only for short periods of time, because it can become very disempowering.”
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There are 2 Responses so far...
I call myself a recovery life coach.
1. Sponsors are not coaches. Sometimes a sponsor is helpful and sometimes a sponsor is harmful because they haven’t done any work on themselves other than go to AA meetings. When my clients have used sponsors and asked for guidance from the later all they could tell them were I don’t know, pray. There is no psychological training, coaching training, healthy life training….
2. I help my clients in mind, body and spirit rediscover themselves. They work on the root of the pain & the addiction. They work on their physical body, emotional and psychological self and on building their spirit. This is done meeting individual needs and aspirations. I help them find where they find the most meaning in life and keep them excited about what they are creating as well as helping them design a sober way of life that is fulfilling. They create a new life practice that supports them and where they are growing. They get tools they can use for a life time in all areas of their life. They learn how to care for themselves….
I would like to add a correction to statement one above. Sponsors have done more than “just go to meetings.” Sponsors have worked the twelve steps of AA, if that is not working on yourself, I don’t know what is.
Sponsors are not counselors or coaches and don’t pretend to be.
I am five years sober and a sponsor.