I'm Gary Busey and I've been clean for 13 years

Behold, cinema's Gary Busey, who - in one of those charming little end-of-days twists - is now Rodney King's sober sponsor. Yes, that Rodney King, who has made the transition from nightvision police-beaten star to drug addict sufficiently broken as to have signed on for American reality show Celebrity Rehab, during which he is filmed 24/7 while receiving treatment for substance abuse.

Busey is on set as a kind of Svengali figure because, by his own account, he's been clean for 13 years. Can you believe it? It means he got those veneers done when he was sober. But does it also mean he was high during the making of Point Break? Lost in Showbiz finds that hard to believe. Are you telling me he was using when he points the gun at that surfer and yells, "Speak into the microphone, squidbrain"? That he was high when he sneered, "I was in this bureau while you were still popping zits on your funny face and jacking off to the lingerie section of the Sears catalogue"? Come on! To have brought such subtly shaded life to the character of jaded Los Angeles cop Angelo Pappas while blowing rails between every take - well, it's just not possible.

Anyhow, as part of his "I've been there, dude" role on Celebrity Rehab, Gary has had to trot out the odd rock bottom anecdote from those glory days. We're going to play out with a personal favourite, which details the time three wraps of cocaine fell on Gary's floor and his dog, Chili, rolled in them. Busey was not about to let that go to waste.

"And I went in like a crop-duster," Gary tells viewers, doing the sound effects, "with my nose flying first and snorted the cocaine off the dog. "Back, butt, side," he expands in another interview. "Not a spot was left. It took me 25 minutes to snort all the cocaine the dog had on her coat. The fringe benefits of this were that the fleas, the dog hair, the mud, and the sweat went in my nose, too. It's not a good flavour coming off the dog."

I believe that rehab etiquette requires us to respond: "Thank you for sharing, Gary."

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