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Posted
6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Sounds like the son was violent in the past. I'm unsure if there was evidence that he physically hurt his parents or not.

I have a couple of extended family members with drug and/or mental health issues. If I had an unexpected knock on the door from one of them, I would hesitate to let them inside. There will be a money request and I don't know what would happen when I refused. I know there has been violent or destructive behavior from them toward others in the past.

I'm a believer in tough love. If someone isn't actively getting better for an addiction issue then they're actually getting worse. And if you're not getting better, then they need to be on their own. The Reiners had substantial resources but I bet it's not easy to take the step of hiring full-time security for protection from your adult son.

"Tough love" or loving from a distance is the approved way to deal with active addict family members.  Anything else risks enablement of the addict, not to mention safety and property of the family.

Still, it's incredibly hard to watch a close family member self-destruct.  Many times, that leads in fairly short order to a rock bottom for the addict and the necessary realization that they need help and acceptance of it and recovery.  Other times, it's going to lead to long term homelessness, jail, prison, and mental institutions.

I had seen an article in connection with the film About Charlie where the Reiners had used this approach for many years, but Nick remained incorrigible and they gave up and began enabling him again.

Fucking brutal.

I've spent a lot of time talking to and listening to the stories of addicts and the worst things I have ever heard inevitably concern their addict children.

Posted
1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

More reported news from the Conan party. Apparently Nick Reiner was asking weird questions of many guests, and bothered Bill Hader, who told Nick that he was interrupting a private conversation. Nick stormed off.

Sucks for Hader if he is now pulled into the drama.

I keep thinking how much it sucks for Conan. 

Posted
57 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

"Tough love" or loving from a distance is the approved way to deal with active addict family members.  Anything else risks enablement of the addict, not to mention safety and property of the family.

Still, it's incredibly hard to watch a close family member self-destruct.  Many times, that leads in fairly short order to a rock bottom for the addict and the necessary realization that they need help and acceptance of it and recovery.  Other times, it's going to lead to long term homelessness, jail, prison, and mental institutions.

I had seen an article in connection with the film About Charlie where the Reiners had used this approach for many years, but Nick remained incorrigible and they gave up and began enabling him again.

Fucking brutal.

I've spent a lot of time talking to and listening to the stories of addicts and the worst things I have ever heard inevitably concern their addict children.

My brother is an addict. Started smoking anything he could light on fire in middle school, then started selling it out of his bedroom window. After I moved away to college, he got into harder stuff and stole money from my parents' money market account to buy drugs. They kicked him out and he eventually made his way to Austin. He got a DUI in Travis County in 2007. We weren't speaking much then, so when I got a call from jail at 7 am I was more than surprised. After we hung up I made some calls and got him released without bail since he was a first-time offender. I guess there's still a lot of paperwork that has to happen, and one has to be given time to sober up, because at noon the same day he called back from jail. Started telling me the same exact story I'd heard 5 hours earlier. I cut him off, told him he was a fucking asshole, and that I was not going to pick him up. I called his roommate who went and got him.

He did alcohol counseling and stopped drinking. Still smokes weed like a chimney but as far as I know, it's the only thing he smokes. We got a lot closer after that, mainly due to his outreach to me (we have no other siblings). He still makes shit financial choices but has had a steady job for a long time and an apartment near us. He takes care of our dog when we're out of town and he would murder anyone who messed with that dog. He'd also murder anyone who messed with me, or my family. When I had to have emergency surgery last year, he was the first to call about visiting me at the hospital.

Lately things have been shakier than usual. His electricity almost got cut off and he almost got evicted until my parents intervened. He doesn't ask me for money or for a place to stay because he knows I'd say no, but if his dog needs food or if he needs to borrow a carpet cleaner or whatever, I'm ok with that. A few months ago he mentioned that he started drinking again. Not much, he says. But I know how it goes. We come from a family of alcoholics.

I guess all this is to say, I can see how someone can try and fail to help an addict they love. Not to be cliche, but even addicts contain multitudes. The Reiners, I'm sure, held out hope until the last minute. When it's your kid, I imagine it's another order of magnitude of difficulty. What a tragedy.

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