Rick Kirkham, tv junkie, insulso, lactoseunverträglichkeit, pacific coast academy, santokumesse
Rick Kirkham's "TV Junkie" was promoted by Sundance as "a self-imposed The Truman Show with a dark twist." He is shown here as a young reporter and with his two boys
The movie camera was Rick Kirkham's best friend.
For 30 years, he turned the lens on himself, fooling around with family, trying marijuana as a teen and ultimately smoking crack cocaine.
He even had the camera rolling when he sped down the road high on booze and pills, intent on killing himself.
Through much of that time, Kirkham was a successful correspondent for television's "Inside Edition," covering crime and celebrity gossip.
A gift for his 14th birthday, the camera captured a video diary of Kirkham's life, as he talked intimately about his addiction, his guilt and the love of his two boys, which would ultimately save him from self-destruction.
That raw footage — nearly 3,200 hours in all — became an award-winning documentary called "TV Junkie" and is now part of an educational curriculum that gives teens a first-person account of the seduction of fame and the heartbreak of substance abuse.
From a spot as a dancer on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" at 16 to his rise as a hot-shot crime reporter in Las Vegas, Kirkham, 49, saw his celebrity and income rise as fast as his insatiable appetite for drugs.
'Secret Death Wish'
"I was secretly developing a death wish and taking more and more risks," Kirkham told ABCNEWS.com. "It was kind of a joke with one of my producers that I would go out in a blaze of glory and the world would see it."
As he traveled the world doing daredevil stunts — being shot from a cannon and nearly dying in a "total body burn" for the show "Inside Adventures" — the gregarious and handsome reporter could do no wrong.
That is, until Kirkham lost his job, his family and nearly his life, as he attempted suicide with 100 pills and two beers — camera rolling — until he passed out and rolled his Jeep.
When he awoke, Kirkham was staring at a photo of his two young boys, and he pledged to clean up his life.
In 1999, after hitting rock bottom, Kirkham handed over 46 boxes of film and 3,200 videotapes to Dallas director Michael Cain, who transformed the raw and disorganized footage into a documentary tour de force. "TV Junkie" won the special jury prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
"I had never seen anything like it, especially the scene where he lights up and smokes crack and questions why he is doing this," Cain told ABCNEWS.com. "He has a great job, wife and kids. But still, it does not stop him. His eyes literally roll back in his head, and he exhales and says what it feels like."
The educational version — "TV Junkie: Faces of Addiction" — was produced with co-editor Matt Radecki; Scope Seven, the team that created the "Supersize Me" educationally enhanced DVD; and the educational company McREL.
The documentary aired last year as part of an HBO series on addiction. The DVD includes related lesson plans, classroom activities and student handouts. The film has on-screen flash facts related to the content.
Recently launched in classrooms, it has been favorably received by educators and police.
"It was like watching a car wreck," wrote Lisa Dianne Binkley of the Tennessee Military Police. "You didn't want to watch, but you couldn't make yourself walk away. … Thank you for creating such a raw, but necessary piece of art."
Drug educators are critical of D.A.R.E. programs in the 1980s and 1990s that provided only information and scare tactics and did little to integrate social, academic and personal competency skills that would steer young people away from drugs.
Prescription Drugs on Rise
In 2006, 9.8 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 were illicit drug users, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Marijuana is on the decline, but prescription drug abuse remains high. Alcohol consumption hovers at "worrisome levels," and attitudes toward ecstasy and LSD are also "softening."
"Kids have magical thinking," said Elizabeth Robertson, chief of prevention research at NIDA. "If you give an exaggerated message, kids can see through it. They have friends using drugs. They can read and they discount it completely."
Kirkham's story is powerful because it's real, said Cain. "Everyone wants to be someone, to be on TV, to be a star and have their 15 minutes. But that can be taken from us. It's the choices we make."
The project took six years and faced financial hurdles. Cain had just invested all his money in the treatment of his father's pancreatic cancer, establishing the Deep Ellum production company to raise money for research.
"We were two broke people with this piece of gold," said Cain, who couldn't even start editing because he didn't have enough money to make copies of the footage. Kirkham had never even viewed the tapes.
The footage included the birth of Kirkham's children, traumatic fights with his wife and scenes of Kirkham getting high as his life descended into chaos.
Rick Kirkham
Jamie Lynn Doesn't Fail 101
Not being able to give up the Chase, Zoey Brooks returned to Pacific Coast Academy for another semester.
The fourth season of Jamie Lynn Spears' sitcom, Zoey 101, quietly premiered on Nickelodeon Sunday, putting to rest speculation that the family-friendly cable network would ice the series' fourth season in light of its star's expectant status.
Season four finished shooting last summer, and Britney's 16-year-old sister didn't reveal she was 12 weeks' pregnant until mid-December, but there was still the question of how the network and Spears' fans would react to the news.
"We respect Jamie Lynn's decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation," Nickelodeon said in a statement when the news hit the fan. "We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn's well being."
Zoey 101's season-three cliffhanger had Zoey moving to England with her parents, so there was an ending in sight if Nick had decided to pull the plug.
But why ruin what may have been a great thing for ratings, however controversial for 9- to 14-year-olds?
The hourlong finale on Jan. 4 attracted a record 7.3 million viewers, outpacing every other scripted show on cable that night, walloping its third-season premiere numbers (3 million) and besting Britney Spears' appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards in September, which was watched by 7.1 million.
So, instead of hunkering down across the pond, Zoey returned to her picturesque oceanside high school after realizing she had romantic feelings for longtime pal Chase Matthews, who's played by Sean Flynn. Unfortunately for Zoey, Chase hightailed it to London in episode one to matriculate at the school he thought Zoey would be attending, so she's currently in L.A. without a beau.
While Zoey is back in school and season four will carry on into May, Spears has pretty much dropped out of sight.
Little is known about Spears' plans for the future or the current status of her relationship with her longtime boyfriend and purported baby daddy Casey Aldridge, and the high school junior has kept her face (new pictures of her face, at least) out of the tabloids.
"She is on hiatus," publicist Holly Shakoor said Monday of her client's low profile.
Not that staying out of the spotlight has kept rumors from surfacing, including stories that the 4½-months-pregnant Spears had suffered a miscarriage, has been partying too hard, or is planning to hand her baby over to mom Lynne—all of which have been adamantly denied by her rep.
