While the title of this post is: How Charlie Sheen Can Help Treatment Centers Admissions it could be written as
“How Can “Any Celebrity”  Help Treatment Centers Admissions.”

As of March 1st 2011 Charlie Sheen is in the news and is like a “rock star from Mars” (his words). While self proclaiming Charlie Sheen can do a 7 gram rock of coke like most people can eat Swedish Fish it might be a matter of time before all of this catches up to him.

What is interesting is the media are in an “Anna Nicole feeding frenzy” on this, their appetite is insatiable. The appetite of the public for the Charlie Sheen addiction saga also won’t wane. Let’s face it Charlie Sheen sells, and he sell entertainment and he is the best at selling entertainment there is.

Because the media focus is all about addiction NOW is a great time for Drug Addiction Treatment Centers to issue a press release with the title being something like:

“Expert Addiction Specialist to Comment on Charlie Sheen Drama”

If you run a treatment center getting in the news does a couple of things for you, the public and some possible addicts:

For you

• establishes you as an expert in addiction treatment
• provides visibility to your brand (treatment center)
• gets more website traffic to the treatment center website
• gets more visibility in social media networks
• gets more inbound links
• gets more press interviews
• provides awesome content for your web site and social networks

For the public

• provides another angle on the story
• provides basic educational information on drug addiction and drug addiction treatment
• provides awareness of what to look for in addictive behavior

For the addicts

• provides another face to treating addiction
• provides a possible solution for the addict
• let’s addicts know there is help and they are not alone
• provide some sense of trust to the addict about the medical community

In this interview analyzing Sheen notice how Dr. Omar Manejwala, MD of Hazelden never discusses Charlie Sheen by name or his actual case but he discusses addiction and how to treat it, in no way does he take advantage of Charlie Sheen in my view.  Dr. Omar Manejwala could not have handled the interview any better.

While some might call this “capitalizing” on the Charlie Sheen incident I think it is time for the treatment industry to speak out on these opportunities because Treatment gets very little press and addiction gets a whole lot of press. Issuing a press release is about a $250 cost plus the time to create it. The possibility of seeing 5,000 + visits to your website and have creditable content will pay off handsomely. What do you think?