BIO 2018: Rob Reiner discusses son’s addiction and rehab
Actor and director Rob Reiner first realised his son Nick had problems with drugs when he was 14 years old after Nick’s friend passed out after taking drugs with him.
The friend was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, and Reiner’s wife took Nick to the hospital where a cocktail of drugs was found in his system.
“That’s when we realised we gotta do something and you really don't know what to do. You want your kid to survive and be ok,” Reiner told audience members during his keynote speech at the 2018 BIO International Convention yesterday, June 6.
Reiner is famous for directing films such as “ Stand by Me”, “ When Harry Met Sally”, and “ The Princess Bride”.
Speaking of his son’s addiction, Reiner said: “I didn't know what to do, we didn't know how to handle it. He got better for a while and then relapsed and he went in and out [of rehab] from the age of 15 to 19.”
Reiner, Nick and a friend who Nick had met in rehab addressed the demons of drug addiction in a project, a film called “ Being Charlie”, which was released in 2015.
For Reiner, the film became therapeutic, “at times it was great and at times it was really difficult”.
Turning to rehab, Reiner was cynical: “The places that do offer medical therapy, offer either methadone or Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone) but not opioid inhibitors … I think that’s also tied into profit motive.”
He claimed that while groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous work for 5-10% of people, they don’t for the other 90%.
He added: “There’s no question about it, it’s an epidemic.”
Reiner also struggled with feelings of blame for his son’s addiction, believing that he must have witnessed or was part of a traumatic event between the age of 0 and 3 years old.
His research into traumatic events in early childhood was sparked by shootings.
“It always bothered me. Whenever they had these interviews [after a shooting], they would say ‘he was such a nice boy, we didn't think there was anything wrong’. I kept thinking that something is wrong, that kid is not on the right path.”
He read a document from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (founded to advance knowledge and understanding) which detailed a development study focused on children aged 0-3 years old.
“[The brain] has grown to 90% of adult size in the first three years and what experiences the child had in the first three years would determine in a large way what they were going to do in life,” he said.
But he questioned what was being done to help children and provide them with the right kind of foundation.
This is why, in 1997, Reiner and his wife founded the I Am Your Child Foundation (now rebranded as Parents’ Action for Children) to improve the state of early childhood development in the US.
“I tried to pass some legislation in California. I decided if I raised taxes on cigarettes we could have money,” he said, referencing a law which he successfully championed.
The legislation, “The Children and Families First Act”, was implemented in January 1999 in California, and $750 million was generated each year for things including healthcare, preschool, and home visitation programmes, Reiner concluded.
The 2018 BIO International Convention finishes today, June 7.
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