BANGKOK — Troubled British rocker Pete Doherty was asked to cut short his one-month stay at a high-end drug rehabilitation center in Thailand because he would not forswear his desire for drugs, an official at the center said Thursday.
“At the end of the day — and this is actually quite common in the rehab institution — he basically worked out that he wasn’t ready for recovery,” The Cabin’s marketing director Ben Moller said in a telephone interview.
Doherty, 33, made progress during his three weeks at the $12,000-a-month recovery resort and his departure was amicable, Moller said. But he added that the rocker was asked to leave because his lack of commitment jeopardized the treatment of other patients.
He described Doherty’s exit from the center as “a mutual decision.”
Doherty, who has fronted the bands Babyshambles and The Libertines, has struggled for years with drug abuse, especially heroin. He has visited Thailand in sunnier circumstances, taking a beach holiday in Phuket during the 2006-2007 New Year’s holiday with his then-girlfriend, model Kate Moss.
He was also a friend of singer Amy Winehouse, who died last year of accidental alcohol poisoning.
Asked if Doherty had been asked to leave because he had resumed taking drugs, Moller replied: “He hadn’t started using it, but that’s what he wanted to do.”
He said it was the nature of drug addiction recovery that one person’s lack of commitment could affect other people.
“To have even one person here out of 20 people or so that’s not even motivated to be recovered or to achieve recovery, it’s really disruptive for the other ones and that’s not because of Pete doing anything intentionally disruptive,” Moller said.
The Cabin is outside Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. It has 27 teak cabins on a riverside site and boasts of a modern, holistic program with counseling and physical fitness.
Doherty’s whereabouts after his discharge Tuesday were not known.
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