Britney Spears Seems To Be Drowning In Troubles

Hot Britney Spears Seems To Be Drowning In Troubles, So Why Won't She Listen To Anyone?

One of the perks of being a superstar is that it frees you from worrying about the little things, like what clothes to wear to a photo shoot, how to style your hair, how you're getting to the recording studio and where your next meal is coming from.

Sure, hands-on multitaskers like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani make a point of being involved in even the most minute decisions about their next project or a product bearing their name, but they also know when to let go and listen to the advice of their trusted teams of advisers, managers, publicists and assistants.

So why does it seem like Britney Spears — who is estimated to be worth more than $300 million — does everything on her own? From reportedly acting as her own publicist/manager/stylist to helping direct the still-unreleased video for her current hit, "Gimme More," to driving her two young children around Los Angeles (without a valid license) and picking the outfit for her ill-received VMA performance, Spears has been painted as an artist-as-island.

Reportedly feuding with her mom and recently dropped by both her attorney and manager, Britney not only doesn't follow the advice of the dwindling members of her professional team, according to reports, she appears determined to listen to no one but herself. And given some of her recent choices, the decision seems to be seriously affecting both her personal and professional lives — and it could have its roots in some troubling causes.

There are two likely reasons for this type of seemingly reckless go-it-alone behavior, according to Dr. Drew Pinsky — host of the syndicated radio show "Loveline" and a board-certified addictionologist — and both of them are potentially disastrous.

"Everyone is looking at this woman and trying to make rational the disease we call addiction, and it's not rational," said Pinsky, who is not treating Spears, but explained that the singer must be suffering from some form of addiction because a person cannot be admitted to a treatment center in California — as Spears was earlier this year — without meeting certain criteria for addiction. "Work, people we love, eating — everything is usurped by this desire to do drugs and alcohol, and all that thinking serves a broken motivation, so the things people do can look nutty because they're not making sense."

Someone suffering from what Pinsky speculates is a combination of different drug addictions in Spears' case is likely to act irrationally and suffer from paranoid delusions, usually directed at friends, family, co-workers and neighbors. Getting someone in that condition to listen to the advice of those around them is a major challenge.