Middle Age Hollywood

To millions of viewers who tune into VH1 reality series Celebrity Rehab and Sober House, David "Dr. Drew" Pinsky is one of Hollywood's most powerful weapons against drug and alcohol addiction. But now, in exclusive interviews with Life & Style, two former colleagues at KROQ -- the LA radio station that gave Drew, 51, his big break on the program Loveline -- have come forward to talk about the doc's past. They say Drew knows firsthand what it's like to fall under the spell of illegal drugs -- because he was once a frequent cocaine user himself.

In 1982, Drew hadn't even finished medical school when he met KROQ DJ Jim Trenton at a party. "I asked him to do this segment with me called Ask a Surgeon," Trenton tells Life & Style. "Listeners could call in and get answers to their romance and medical questions." The segment was such a hit, it soon evolved into Loveline -- which remains on the air to this day.

While they spent their days helping listeners with their love, sex and health-related problems, Drew and Jim spent many of their nights partying away. Often, Trenton says, that included cocaine use. "He used to say to me, 'Jim, I love cocaine,'" Trenton notes. "He'd say that a lot -- that he loved coke." In fact, Trenton adds, Drew "did coke with a lot of different people, including myself, on numerous occasions." Joanna Swylde, who worked as an intern at KROQ at the time and partied with Drew and Trenton, confirms Trenton's claims. She tells Life & Style they even used to snort lines of cocaine off album covers in the control room at work. "We would do it during the breaks on the show," Swylde recalls.

Although Drew used coke, "I don't think he was addicted to it," Trenton tells Life & Style. "He used it recreationally.

"I would say by the mid to late '80s, he had quit," Trenton says. "We all stopped doing it."

For more on Dr. Drew's dark past, pick up this week's issue of Life & Style, on newsstands now.


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