Nicholas Brendon Returns to Dr. Phil To Discuss Substance Abuse Issues, Depression

Nicholas Brendon, the troubled Buffy the Vampire Slayer star, returned to Dr. Phil in an effort to confront his ongoing substance abuse issues and battle with depression.

Nicholas Brendon On ‘Dr. Phil’

In a preview clip of the episode, which is to air Tuesday, Dr. Phil says to Brendon, “Tell me how you feel about being here today.”

“You know, I feel a lot better than I did last time, to be honest with you,” Brendon admitted to the talk show host. “I think I need more help than I realized. I just thought that this was the right thing.”

Since the last time he was on Dr. Phil, Brendon has once again been arrested. This time, the actor was arrested in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., after he allegedly choked his girlfriend. Brendon was charged with three misdemeanors – two counts of criminal mischief and one count of obstruction of breathing. He was also charged with robbery in the third degree, a felony. Brendon spent the night in jail.

Dr. Phil asked Brendon, “Did you obstruct her breathing?” to which he replied, “No, I held her down to get [her] car keys.” Brendon added of his brief experience in prison, “When you wake up in jail and you’re not sure why you’re there, that’s a very, very lonely feeling.”

Following his latest run-in with the law, Brendon put a call into Dr. Phil producers, asking for help. His desperate call for help in getting his life back on track came a few months after he had walked off the show in August. He had agreed to make an appearance on Dr. Phil as part of his rehabilitation, but soon decided that Phil McGraw‘s TV program wasn’t the venue for him to talk about his troubles.

On Facebook, Brendon had explained his reasons for walking off the show. “My illnesses and addictions are a daily struggle for me, and I am committed to working on them for the rest of my life. A big part of that is focusing on positivity. I’m the first to admit I’ve messed up, a lot, and I’ve hurt people I care about and who care about me,” Brendon wrote. “When I was in that seat, I felt that Dr. Phil went for the jugular, talking about some of my recent mistakes, with no build up. I felt that he wanted me to lay the darkest parts of myself on national TV right from the start, and I’m not willing to do that.”

Brendon had checked himself into rehab back in July after using his bare hands to smash a window of a woman’s apartment. He had reportedly gotten into an argument with a woman and subsequently put his hands through one of the windows in her apartment, reported TMZ. After the act of rage, Brendon took off. Firefighters responded to the incident, and cops later found Brendon in a nearby alley bleeding from his hands.

After splitting from his wife of four months, Moonda Tee, in February of this year, Brendon has been involved in a number of concerning incidents. He was arrested for trashing a hotel room in Fort Lauderdale and refusing to pay his bill shortly after announcing the divorce, according to Gossip Cop. The following month, he was arrested for a similar event in Tallahassee. At the time, Brendon said he was suffering from depression.