Hollywood ... High

March 16, 2007 — -- In Hollywood these days, driving in the wrong direction on a freeway, being caught "under the influence," or shaving your head in public and then racing off to rehab are just as likely to get you on the cover of a magazine as a big opening at the box office.

The list of headline-grabbing celebrities is long: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Whitney Houston, Robert Downey Jr., Nicole Richie, Kate Moss and Marc Jacobs are among the stars who've gone public with their drug and alcohol problems and who are trying to walk the road to recovery.

Addiction specialist Drew Pinsky says the death of Anna Nicole Smith, an alleged drug abuser, was a wake-up call in Hollywood.

"She dies and then all of a sudden everybody goes into treatment. And that is typically what happens with addicts," says Pinsky, who runs the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, Calif.

"When someone really has a consequence, they recognize themselves in that and try to get help," Pinsky said.

Drug abuse and the creative arts are longtime co-stars of the celebrity high-wire act. In the 1940s, leading man and tough guy Robert Mitchum did jail time for marijuana possession.

In the 1950s, Billie Holiday and Charlie "Birdman" Parker made all that jazz with heroin flowing through their veins. In the 1960s, box office giant Gary Grant extolled the virtues of LSD as therapy and Marilyn Monroe overdosed on prescription drugs.

The toll was high in the 1990s. Rock star Kurt Cobain shot himself after leaving a treatment center in Los Angeles. Funnyman Chris Farley and actor River Phoenix overdosed on cocaine and morphine.

Despite the spate of recent high-profile celebrity meltdowns, some wonder whether a cavalier attitude toward substance abuse remains pervasive in Hollywood. After being arrested for an alleged DUI in the fall, Paris Hilton didn't seem to see what all the fuss was about.

"It was nothing," she reportedly told "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest. "I was just really hungry, and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger."