The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #2063 - Adam and Dr. Drew React to the Murder of Rob and Michele Reiner

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Adam and Dr. Drew open the show reacting to the tragic murders of Rob and Michele Reiner and the shockwaves it’s sending through Hollywood. They dig into the psychology of Rob Reiner’s son Nick, discussing how long-term drug addiction, repeated rehab stays, and unresolved underlying issues can converge into something unthinkable, and what warning signs families should watch for.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Discover why there's more to imagine when you listen at audible.com slash best of the year. Recorded live at Corolla 1 Studios with Adam Carolla and board certified physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Yeah, get it on. Get it on. board front of five citizens, did it, what's going on out there, Trusky.

Everybody wants to hear my thoughts on Rob Reiner and that catastrophe. You want to get into it a little bit? Sure. Let's see. This is, you know, it's, most people are aware

what happened, and yet no one seems to be able to make sense of what happened, which is exactly the point, that when people are on drugs or coming off drugs, they're to understand what they're doing,

thinking, saying, behaving rationally is a gigantic mistake. Yeah. Well, look, we, look, as humans, we do that with dogs. You know, we go, listen, listen, I'm your friend. I'm not trying to hurt you. What is he thinking? He'd been me.

I'm trying to help you. Yeah. Like, they don't, we do that with everything. Yeah. We don't really get the, we do that with terrorists, and we do it with dogs, and we do it with drug acts. Like, if they just understood, we're here to help, then they wouldn't blow us up.

Right. You know what I mean? Like, we get into big trouble with that. Yeah. And it literally gets people killed. Well, one of the first, yes. And it doesn't help people either if you're trying to help them to do that. And one of the first lessons I learned working in a psychiatric hospital for all those years, early on, I thought, oh, do not assume that other people's brains work like yours does.

Do not make that assumption. I have that trouble with women. It's, well, their brains don't work like yours does. I'm talking about work at all. I'm not just like mine. You don't have to work like mine. But go ahead. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a huge mistake to superimpose your thinking on someone else's brain function. And so let's start with that. Then this kid has had multiple, multiple treatments, which is not uncommon. And there's this whole story that's kind of interesting. I spoke to a guy yesterday who knew a shit, I'm a block on the Sun's name. Oh. Nick. Nick Reiner, yeah.

And he had done some podcasting with him. It's a guy named Dopey Dave does the Dopey podcast. He was actually thinking about bringing Nick on as a co-host. He sort of liked him that much. But one of the things we both sort of started chatting about was how Rob Reiner's way of dealing with his son's illness was to make a movie about his son, right? which is, it puts in a huge burden on the addict who's already feeling immense amount of guilt and shame to live up to this movie and what the father has portrayed him as, which of course they can't do.

Well, do we know that was initiated by Rob Reiner? The movie? Yeah. I mean, did the kid initiated? What do you mean? Yeah. I don't know if Rob Reiner went to his kid and said, you know, I want to make a movie about you. Yeah. I saw them in interviews. Maybe I'm getting this wrong.

Well, no, I mean, who wrote the script? Like, who's, I asked, I don't know that it's Rob Reiner's idea to make the movie about the kid. The kid could have wanted to make a movie, Nick, and then, and then recruited his, I mean, oftentimes, well, it depends. Look, oftentimes, famous director, dads, when they do a project with their kids, it's their kid's idea because the dad's off the bigger and better thing. Yes, 100%. I'm not saying, I don't know that he initiated it. Yes, that could be. Can you guys help us with that? I don't know if that the information is out there.

From what I can tell, Rob Reiner did initiate it because Nick did not write it by himself. He had a co-writer on it with him. Rob directed the film and produced it. And Nick wrote it. Nick co-wrote it. So who knows? But that doesn't mean Rob Ryder started at all. Started it.

But anyway. So who knows? So he made a film with his son. Yeah, I just saw the discomfort in the kid later in the interviews. I think he was already using it, already relapse, and that's what we're seeing that. And may the kid set himself up for it. That's certainly possible. But there's another piece in here, too, where there's during the promotion for that film, you see, right, and this, by the way, Rob Reiner, let's all agree.

Good guy. Great guy. And you may not have agreed. He may not have agreed with you, Adam. He may not agree with things. He said, does not deserve at all what happened here. All right. You don't have to give the precursor all time.

Well, he was a good, he was, look. They're guys you disagree with and they're dushy. And then there are guys you disagree with and they're nice people. Yeah. He was a nice person. Yeah. And a super talented person and stuff. Yeah.

So in any event, I saw him in an interview saying, oh, I should never have listened to professional of my parenting. I know my son better than anybody. My instincts. I should have followed my instincts. And I thought, oh, that's how you get yourself into trouble. Because people don't get that because it's such a profound. motivational disturbance that the child or any individual that you are involved with will pull you

into the condition. Even me as a doctor. When they come to me for help, I get spun into their disease, which is why I always kept a nurse in the room with me, not because I was worried about getting accused of something, but because she would kick me in the chair if she heard me sort of going into their bullshit, like believing stuff, it's co-signing stuff. And that's why you have to have. a sponsor in codependency treatment who you check in with every time you deal with your kid.

I know it's horrible and cumbersome, but you've got to check in with somebody who knows this condition to go, hey, did I say this right? Was that wrong here? What did I get wrong? How do I correct that? Because on your own, you won't see it and you'll get sucked in. And that's that. Well, I mean, he went to rehab 17 times. Bob Forrest went to rehab 24, 22 times. Really? Yeah. It's not uncommon at all for people in multiple treatments. I mean, well, okay, I think And Rob's, in terms of his statement about the experts, you know, when you do 17 times with the experts, then at a certain point you get the idea that maybe the experts aren't as adept at this or, you know, that, you know, maybe, maybe, well, first of all, it's hard to fail more than 17 times.

I know you can, but what I'm saying is, if I took my car and have the transmission fix 17 times, to the dealer, at some point I'd go, well, maybe I should fix it myself, or I'll try. I don't think that'd be an unwarranted conclusion. I will tell you what happens, though, every time you're continuing the transmission metaphor, every time you bring it in, you go, no, no, no, no, let's deal with those belts later. No, don't worry about the exhaust. And the guys like, it's going to blow. You got to, no, no, no, no, no.

There's always these. Well, I don't know how to fix a transmission. That's probably your biggest argument for me. meaning you should listen to me about the transmission. Well, I've tried you 17 times. Now I'm going to try myself, but I don't know how to fix the transmission either. Right. So let's let me add the score up of things that people routinely don't do, that they must do, or the identified kid can die.

We're talking about meth, heroin here, particularly, or fentanyl, whatever. If they get arrested, make sure they go to prison. and if they are doing illegal things make sure they get arrested and then make sure they go to prison okay they never do that yeah yeah well look and in California it's hard to do that

you don't get they don't put them in prison for anything the reality is they are not if they're okay if you are out and and you have resources

and you're you're going to find a way to get treatment or to use to you oh sorry to use if you're out yeah correct and you know it needs we don't like incarcerating people and we don't like incarcerating people because of drugs but it will save their life right because they can't access the drugs right and well not just that because loss becomes the primary motivator Right? Well, I'm just saying from a, like, just a physical standpoint, look, we could put you in a cage in the living room and it would work.

That's right. We'll feed you breakfast bars and Gatorade and you will put a latrine there and you'll sit in a cage in the living room. There was shit like that going on in Mexico for a while where parents were doing that. Yeah, well, I mean, it would work. It would be, you know, be, yeah, I mean, it'd be miserable and all that kind of good stuff. But, I mean, the reality is, is prison has cleaned up a lot of people. And I would argue that the low-income nobody's, now not in New York City and not in Los Angeles. But if you were in Indiana or Kentucky or whatever and you're just a low-level nothing person with no money and you get caught up with drugs,

end up going to prison and then you end up getting sober because you went to prison. Now, if you're in Manhattan or Los Angeles, there's a revolving door so you don't do that. And if your dad's famous and has a lot of money, then you don't do that. But it's probably, if you're some kind of white trash with no family income and you're in a red state that doesn't tolerate that shit, then you go somewhere and then you end up getting clean. One of the teen moms got in that mess. She was dying of fentanyl addiction in Indiana. And they put her in long term and put her in a long-term program while she was there. She ended up being a peer counselor.

It was a magnificent. It was a couple of a year and a half, couple of years, and it was like, this is how you do it. Right. But letting them languish on the streets or in a guest house is not really the answer. Correct. But it's important for people to know, and this is the point I'm trying to make, is that one of the things that breaks through denial, One of the ways to break through that disturbance of motivation, that is drug addiction, is loss. And the things that get lost that catch the attention, not always, but often catch the attention of addicts is loss of life, like they have a near-death experience.

So loss of health, lots of life. Loss of, for women, particularly, their children. Then they're, oh, shit, I got to get something together. Loss of important family members, spouses, that kind of thing, loss of access to your kids. if you're a man. That gets them. And then loss of freedom. It's not just that they're cleaning up in prison. It's that they're like they don't like the loss of freedom. And it makes them think, huh, maybe I should do something different. I've got a friend of mine who's a long-term recovering. He's a magnificent nurse now and a nurse practitioner stuff. There was a nurse

administrator. And he was a primary cocaine. He was a garbage bag kind of thing. And but he He trafficked in cocaine in Newport Beach, of all things. And he kept going in prison and getting arrested. He was on one of these street corners, you know, up by not Fashion Island, but South Coast Plaza. And every time he get in prison, he goes, I must have been in the wrong corner. So he kept changing corners. And then the last time he got arrested, he's like, oh, man, something is really wrong. What is wrong with me?

Oh, I know. I keep the cocaine in my shirt pocket. I got to put it in my socks. That's the thinking of drug addiction, right? And then finally, it did get through it. Finally, after multiple arrests. And it took somebody, reach out their hand, somebody kind, going, are you tired of this? You tired yet?

You tired of this? And he went, yeah, I'm tired. Well, let us show you a different way. And that's how people get well, is how they get well. And it's hard to watch, and it's dangerous. That's the other part, which is how do you keep somebody safe through all that? And, of course, the attic plays that up on the parent, particularly the mom. They will say, constantly, the mom believes the child will die if the mom doesn't do something.

That is the main play of the child with alcohol and addiction. They play on the mom more than the dad. And then they create conflict between the mom and the dad. Well, that's easy. They go to the mom, right? Yeah. And the mom's like, oh, God, he's going to die. He's going to die.

He says he's going to quit suicide. You know, so there we go. But suicide, if what, though? They'll use death all over the place. Yeah, but what's the mom going to do from in this scenario? We've got to bring him home. We've got to put in his room. We've got to go.

Oh, yeah. He's out of the streets. What are we going to do? Nick was out on the street for long periods of time. I know. So somehow they did get the message or Nick just blew out. So I don't know. I don't know what was happening there.

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We're just sort of using this case as something to learn from. And I hate it when people blame the patients, too, for everything. That drives me crazy. When people have mental health problems, they go, well, he wasn't motivated. He didn't want to get well. It's like, that's part of the problem. That's part of the disease. What is?

What is this drug? I all like, well, we know that opiates, mostly long term, which is this is the story of opiates. But I'm going to posit that I smell meth in the play here. Because of the violence? The violence and the knives. All the machetes you see out on the street of Los Angeles, people carrying machetes and, you know, going after people, that's meth. Always. So the violence and the picking up an object, particularly sharp objects, that seems to be math most of the time.

And meth, you know, he, I'm going to say he won't remember this. He doesn't even know he did it, I bet you. And that's not him lying. They get in these fugue states on meth, well, they don't know what the hell's going on. You know, they just get disorganized and blackout or red out or just don't even know. It's awful. It's awful. And the daughter went and discovered it, 28-year-old daughter.

Oh, is she the one that discovered it? Yeah. And she was very close to Rob, too. it looked like to me. Well, she went in, according to latest reports, she went in to do like a wellness check. And by the way, they must have been close because if my sister stabbed my mom and my dad, I might not know for months. It's not like I'll call them every morning. You know what I'm like she. They're not checking in with the grandkids. My dad said he was buying me a dirt bike. Where is No, I mean, my, I mean, your adult relationship with your kids, and it's got some range,

but she was checking in, like, pretty much seemed like on a daily basis, right? And so she must have been very close to go over there. I mean, if I called my parents on a Sunday morning, they didn't pick up the phone, I think they were walking or something. I wouldn't head over. She also knew. She also knew that Nick was dangerous because she, I don't say she knew this was coming, but she suspected, oh, she immediately called him out.

So when they found out, when the cop showed up, she was like, go find my brother. So she must have been, she must have had some inkling that he was capable of something. or that they were in, I don't think she felt comfortable with him living in the house because she felt like he posed a danger. She must have known something. She must have heard something, seeing something. You know, she's her sister.

So she went over there. She lived across the street from her parents. And the thing that was weird is I heard that she discovered Rob and then ran out of the house. Well, sure. Well, sure, but no, the only reason I'm saying that is where was the mom? Presumably, if they got stabbed in the middle of the night, they would presumably be in the same pad, and you would walk in and you would see two people,

and then you would run out. Or you wonder if Rob, you know, muscled through, went after him or something. Yeah, something staggered to his feet and crawled down the hallway or something. Exactly. Horrible. Beyond. Beyond Drew. Beyond, yeah.

So I know they had a big argument at Conan O'Brien's house before then. Bill Hayter was involved with that or something, right? Was that it was? Yeah, I ran into him at the Lakers game a few weeks ago. He was a very delightful guy, so I'm not going to put this on Bill. No, no, no, no, no. There's no fault, I don't think, here anywhere. I mean, well, there's no fault for anybody who, you know, was at a party.

and told someone to be quiet, let me finish my story or something, something like that. Obviously, that's not a thing. So the, so weird, weird a little bit that he came to the party. Well, because I have friends that, you know, aren't good at parties. And I figure that out. And I've avoided them showing up to parties, especially if the person's, notable and the grope is normal. You know, you're like, that's going to be an environment

where that person is not going to do well. Yeah. Well, he, the report is that Rob brought him, quote, keep an eye on him. Oh. And keeping an eye on someone with addiction is never a good thing, whether it's a sober

partner or a parent or whatever. It's just, it just suggests things are not going well at all. Yeah. Well, I, so evidently things weren't going well. And evidently, leaving him alone in the house was probably not something that Rob and his wife wanted to do. And then there's one last sort of wrinkle in this whole story, which is that you keep hearing there's mental health problems, the mental health problems.

Well, sure. And he did a bunch of hallucinogens early, apparently. And that causes mental health problems of all varieties. And he was doing meth, which also causes manias and psychoses and actually destroys parts of the brain, mood disturbances of all types. So, yeah, I'm sure he had mental health problems, but the primary thing was the addiction and the mental health problems

probably all stem from that. However, the kinds of mental health problems that people can get into with drugs can be associated with severe delusions where you believe your parents are trying to kill you, or you're trying to kill your parents so the devil doesn't get them, or who knows what. So that happens also.

Yeah, so what do you think, you know, they're going for the death penalty I think that's an overreach. I think it's a mistake. I don't think they're going to get that. You don't. Yeah. Because there's so many confounding things here. You know, just come on. I mean, unless he has said repeatedly while sober, I need to kill my parents, which I don't know anybody said that or heard that. Yeah, so he's just going to end up with the menendai. And here's the other thing I want people to take home. If they had allowed him to get arrested and spend a couple years in prison, he would not be spending the rest of his life in prison.

He would have spent a couple of years there, and that would be that. The other thing, and this is the last, last, last thing, is that the way situations like this need to be treated is they have to go inpatient, get stabilized, they have to go to residential for a couple months and make sure they're doing okay. And then they need to go to a long-term structured environment. This is how RFK Jr. got sober. He was in a work farm for, I think he said, two years. and those are like $500 a month.

A work farm. Yeah. And you work there and you have meetings, you have sober peers and stuff. And you must, and you get vocational rehab, hopefully, so you can start to make a productive life again afterwards. But you need to be there for a long time. It takes a long time for the brain mechanisms to settle down and for sobriety to kick in. It's not a 30-day thing. You won't even remember the first three months, nine times out of ten.

So to put a bunch of money and effort into the early parts of treatment is anathema. It makes it no sense. And so just a general principle, if you're spending a lot of money, don't go there. It shouldn't cost a lot of money. You should go somewhere that's bare bones, that's willing to take the patient for a long period of time, that doesn't put up on any bullshit, that has a lot of experience with this particular drug of abuse, and there you go. You just go in there.

You find ways to leverage it and keep them there. Words of wisdom from Dr. Drew. Yeah. All right. I'm going to be at the Sagebrush canteena tomorrow night with Brad Williams. It's bring your ugly sweater, by the way. We'll have a competition. And then over the weekend, I'll be a Kimball's Club in Las Vegas.

Four shows. Go to Amcrow.com for all the live shows. What do you got, Drew? We do a show Tuesday and Thursday at 2 o'clock, 4 o'clock Pacific time on Wednesday. And check out of it was really interesting. Yesterday, like I said, I spoke to a guy who does. as a podcast, new Rob, new, rather, Nick, Nick. And it's, we have a good interview.

There's interesting people there, and I suggest it most of how you guys will like. The easy way to get is look for the blast on X and just click on that. So, till next time, Adam Crowell for Dr. Sane. Mahala. Joy to the world, Pluto TV, it's free with all the best movies. From all the day's all brutal. Stream Pluto TV, stream Pluto TV, streaming Pluto TV for free. Stream blockbuster hits like 21 Jumpstreet, Ted, the expendables, and so much more on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

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