I’ll admit it – I’m one of those people who, while at work or in the computer lab at school, tries to sneak a click at the infamous TMZ Web site just to get caught up on the latest celebrity gossip.

Lately, however, it’s been the same old story. Everyone in Hollywood seems to be getting treated for something in rehab, but maybe it’s just a new publicity stunt used to boost celebrity fame. British pop singer Amy Winehouse has definitely made a profit out of treatment with her 2007 hit song “Rehab.”

Celebrity drug use has always been a problem. Actors are prone to drug addiction because they have the money and the access. Fame opens up a world that could either be dangerous or profitable.

Many celebrities have fallen into the glamorous life and have become spoiled with the ability to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. And when I hear another crazy rehab story it makes me think, how could they let this happen? Are they really doing this just to get attention?

Magazines like People have also reported on celebrity drug use and the many ins and outs of rehab. Over the past two years, many of the most ill-behaved celebrities have been seen on the covers of magazines tying to deal with their struggles to overcome drug and alcohol abuse.

Young celebrities caught up in the Hollywood party scene are surrounded by easy access to many drugs. Even the celebrities who look innocent aren’t.

Eva Mendez and Kirsten Dunst, two celebrities with a clean image and whom I would have never guessed to be addicts, both entered into rehab this past month and suddenly popped up everywhere in entertainment news.

Last summer, Lindsey Lohan gained popularity on many magazine covers when she crashed her black Mercedes and received a DUI in Los Angeles. The next weekend she was on almost every magazine cover and entertainment Web site looking passed-out in the passenger’s seat of a friend’s car with a pale face, her head tilted to the side and her mouth wide open. Also hanging from the rear-view mirror of the car were three sobriety medallions from rehab treatment that each indicated 30 days of sobriety. So much for that.

Then the tabloids went crazy to capture Lohan’s out-of-control party habits that led to her long-needed treatment at a facility in Utah.

Another celebrity who has become the most photographed woman in the world right now, because of poor decisions like shaving her head and smashing cars with an umbrella, would have to be the jaw-dropping life of Britney Spears. Articles on MSNBC, Fox News and E! Online, just to name a few, have all ran stories on Spears’ attempts to find help.

Celebrity rehab has even found its way into the business world. Business Week, a Web site dedicated to getting the latest business news, issued a blog on March 27, 2007, by its columnist John Fine using Spears’ rehab drama to criticize other media companies. “Anyone thinking that the fast-growing site TMZ.com is strictly takedown or gawker central (that’s gawker the concept, not gawker the site) evidently hasn’t seen the valentines they’re sending to the nation’s best- known rehab doll,” he said.

Also, a new reality show called “Celebrity Rehab” has aired this year on VH1. It documents the rehab journey of eight celebrities treated by Dr. Drew Pinsky, who is the medical director of the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Las Encinas Hospital in Southern California. Drew also had a previous show called Loveline, in which he issued advice to questions dealing with relationships and sex.

With the pressure of the media constantly looking over their shoulders, celebrities face extreme pressure on how to maintain their image. Seeing a celebrity enter rehab because they have been depending on drugs and alcohol to calm their nerves should be seen as a chance for them to turn their life around and not as an opportunity for people to make money.

Some celebrities are lucky enough to hit rock-bottom and come back up again, but then there are cases like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley who leave us as legends. So as the saying “sex, drugs and rock and roll” goes, celebrities these days are surely living up to it.

Anna Torres can be reached at [email protected]