Dr. Phil accused of giving his addicts alcohol and drugs before shows

Dr. Phil and his staff have been accused of plying addicts appearing on his show with drugs and alcohol.

Former guest and “Survivor: China” winner Todd Herzog was battling alcohol addiction when he appeared on Dr. Phil McGraw’s CBS show “Dr. Phil” in 2013.

He told STAT and the Boston Globe that he was flown to Los Angeles for the show’s taping and was sober when he arrived. Then, he found a bottle of vodka in his set's dressing room.


Herzog said a show staffer also gave him a Xanax so it could “calm his nerves” before his appearance. When he went on the show, he appeared drunk and looked like he was struggling to walk.

“Today, I had an entire bottle, like a liter, of vodka,” Herzog told McGraw on stage. A Breathalyzer test showed he blew .263 — more than three times the legal limit.
“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 and the Globe. “However, what would have happened if I died there? You know, that’s horrifying.”

Other former guests have accused the popular TV doctor and his staff of putting them at risk and leaving them without medical attention. One woman claimed a show employee told her to buy heroin from a drug market for her niece who was trying to detox.

Martin Greenberg, a psychologist and the show’s director of personal affairs, said the claims were “absolutely, unequivocally untrue.”

“Dr. McGraw has a very strong sense of trying to not exploit people,” Greenberg previously told the publication. “Now it is a television show. These people volunteer to come on. They beg to come on. And he tries to treat them with respect … and to give them the opportunity to get help if they want to do that. It’s not a complicated formula.”