Posted on 12/23/2025 8:06:39 AM PST by Angelino97
Accused double murderer Nick Reiner once admitted he got hooked on heroin only after his parents put him in a New Age rehab facility in the Utah wilderness when he was just 16.
Reiner, who is accused of stabbing to death his dad, Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, and his mom, Michele, claimed in a newly resurfaced podcast interview that he only became exposed to the harder drugs after his stint at an expensive, nature-based therapy program for teens.
“I went to a wilderness program in Utah. It was called Second Nature, and I met a kid there from LA and, at the time, he was kind of a hardcore Venice kid,” Reiner told the “Dopey” podcast in 2016. “I met him when I was 16 and then, I was 18, I was in a sober living [facility], and I call him up because I knew he was really into heroin at the time.”
The iconic director’s troubled middle child, now 32, said he then went to Skid Row with his former rehab pal and shot up for the first time.
“The point of the story is that the seed of heroin got planted by the first time I was ever in rehab and the person I got it from was a guy that I met in rehab like three years down the line,” Reiner said.
“For all the negative that I think it did to me, it also exposed me to a larger demographic of people.”
The “nature-based” program, which was founded in 1998 by clinicians, secludes teens ages 13 to 17 in the wilderness in a bid to help them kick their habits.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Evidence of "mitigating factors" accumulating for his defense.
The rehab had nothing to do with heroin. Addicts always dig for excuses. Maybe God will show mercy and have him realize this is rock bottom.
EC
FWIW, I don’t think this will go to trial.
Right, as if he would never have heard of heroin any other way.
I knew it would all point back to Meathead. He’s was such a fool yet projected against real people.
Saw an interview....Nick said he had been to rehab 17 or 18 times...and he was laughing about it...
Wrong. He was shoved into a den of inequity with other dirtbags. He didn’t stand a chance at 16 of overcoming that environment.
I tend to agree, but I always keep in mind that expensive lawyers for wealthy celebrity criminals in today's very corrupt and flawed judicial system (towards leniency for those kinds of criminals) render little reliability or predictability for juries whose cultural DNA is sympathetic and accommodating towards celebrities of all types.
Most 16 year old boys get hooked on hergroin instead, a lifelong addiction that leaves many in poverty.
Sad but true.
The “nature-based” drug rehab secludes teens ages 13 to 17
in “the wilderness” in a bid to help them kick their habits.
Stupidly liberal.
So he had to go to rehab at age 16. Where were his parents when he was 12-16?
I think both the prosecution and the defense will be more concerned with protecting Hollyweird than seeing that justice is done.
I worked with a woman whose husband went to gambling ‘recovery’ meetings. She said it was all men who traded stats and where the best casinos were. He never recovered nor even came near.
In the end its up to the individual whether or not they choose to use intoxicants. Yet this pampered kid was raised in the midst of Hollywood, neo pagan , hedonistic decadence. He certainly was not exposed to the religious stoicism of his immigrant great grandparents or the cultural mileau of early 20th century Bronx. Can you imaging this kid actually attended a party and kept asking people “Are you famous?” He was also taught to hate. His mind set and actions are understandable but not excusable
The sitcom All in the Family aired their death-penalty episode in 1971. California put a moratorium on the DP in 72, thus sparing the lives of the Manson Family. Meathead has been influencing California politics for a very long time.
Second Nature
Duchesne, UT 84021, USA
2.1 Stars
11 reviews
Noah Moon
5 stars
I don’t know what all these other people are talking about. I was there twice, once in April-July of 2021 and again in June-September in 2022. I also went to 3 other places. Maybe I didn’t have bad mental problems, and it was more just my … More
Steve A
5 stars
I went here over a decade ago - it taught me emotional literacy, gave me a love of nature, reset my relationship with my parents, and set me back on the right path for college. … More
Wacc
5 stars
Lwk fire would go again if I wasn’t in my 20’s. Better than the other wilderness I’ve been to. Actually helped me change and at points rather enjoyable. Staff Ryan is the goat. And thanks Derrick for being a real one. Also stop leaving surfies around campsites.
Elise Hansen
1 star
WARNING They changed their Google account to get rid of their reviews because they had 1 star and many people speaking out about the harms of this program. It used to be called “second nature wilderness therapy” with over a thousand … More
MacGregor
1 star
I was sent here in 2006 and it traumatized me for life. I have been in therapy pretty much ever since, and will never be able to fully heal from my experience at Second Nature. My parents feel awful for having ever sent me here and said it … More
Sophia Schutzberger
1 star
Shaming, degrading, and humiliating kids in the name of treatment. If you don’t remember having to squat and cough then being sent out to the middle of nowhere for months you are probably still traumatized by the experience. I watched the … More
emily
1 star
disgusting
mackenzie layne
1 star
Ellen Ellie Belmont
1 star
Gray T
1 star
John K
1 star
When Meatloaf died a little while back there was a story about his daughters getting grief from rich Westport CT girls in school and him moving the family upriver to a more modest middle class town.
It would have been good advice for the Reiners to move out of Brentwood to a place with fewer temptations, but Rob was already a 2nd generation celebrity and I guess the Reiners weren’t willing to give up the glamour and glitz. They assumed they were getting support and acceptance and fellowship from the people around them but their kids were in a snakepit of privilege and drug use.
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