‘Dr. Phil’ Show Accused Of Offering Alcohol & Drugs To Addicts Seeking Help On ProgramDr. Phil McGraw

One former guest, and two other former guests’ families have accused the Dr. Phil show of allegedly obtaining alcohol and drugs for the struggling addicts.

In a lengthy piece for STAT/Boston Globe, former Survivor winner Todd Herzog detailed shocking allegations of his multiple appearances on Dr. Phil to treat his alcohol addiction. Dr. Phil director of professional affairs Martin Greenberg denied all allegations in STAT/Boston Globe‘s story, saying in a statement that the claims are “absolutely, unequivocally untrue.”

Herzog, 32, first appeared on the show in 2013 as the result of a surprise intervention by his family, who contacted Dr. Phil for help with his alcohol addiction. The show flew him to Los Angeles from Utah and put him up in a hotel, where Herzog says he detoxed over a few days. Herzog told STAT that when he arrived to the studio to film his episode, he was sober; this was confirmed by his father, Glen. But he alleges that a liter-sized bottle of vodka was left in his dressing room, which he drank. He also claims someone gave him Xanax to “calm his nerves” before the show.

When he went onstage to meet Dr. Phil in front of the live studio audience, he was so intoxicated that he had to be carried out and sat down in his chair. “Today, I had an entire bottle, like a liter, of vodka,” he told Dr. Phil McGraw during the episode. Dr. Phil breathalyzed him onstage and he blew a .263 — more than three times the legal limit to drive in the United States. “You know, I get that it’s a television show and that they want to show the pain that I’m in,” Herzog told STAT. “However, what would have happened if I died there? You know, that’s horrifying.”

Greenberg said that Herzog was “medically supervised the entire time he was involved with tapings of Dr. Phil.” That supervision, according to Greenberg, included a nurse-practitioner flying with him to Los Angeles for the taping, a nurse sitting with him during the night at the hotel, and “a medical professional from a treatment center who happened to be in LA at the time.” None of the medical personnel were named. Greenberg later came back to STAT with responses to follow-up questions and clarified that, “We mean 100% of guests agreeing to treatment. It does not mean that a guest is being monitored 100% of the time…substance abusers adopt very clever means” to obtain alcohol or drugs, and “we cannot control what we cannot control.

“Addicts are notorious for lying, deflecting and trivializing. But, if they are at risk when they arrive, then they were at risk before they arrived,” Greenberg said in the statement. “The only change is they are one step closer to getting help, typically help they could not have even come close to affording.”

Marianne Smith‘s niece, only identified as Jordan, appeared on the 2012 episode “Young, Reckless, and Enabled” after she contacted the show for help breaking the young woman’s heroin addiction. According to Smith, she, Jordan, and Jordan’s mother came to Los Angeles from out of state, and Jordan was going through heroin withdrawal. Panicked, Smith and her sister reportedly told a show producer that she needed heroin, and they allegedly told them to go to Skid Row. Smith cannot remember the producer’s name.