Understanding Schizophrenia: How Rob And Michele Reiner's Tragic Deaths Highlight The Escalating Mental Health Crisis W/Neal Nordlinger, Interventionist And Former Film Producer

Tragically, on December 14, 2025, Rob and Michele Reiner were fatally stabbed by their son, Nick Reiner. How could something like this happen? To assist in understanding these devastating deaths, our guest is Neal Nordlinger, an author, interventionist, and former film and television producer, as well as the founder of inCrisis Consultants. This organization supports families in navigating treatment options for addiction and mental health.

Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Executive Producer and Host Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

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Transcript

0:11

Hello, my name is Sandy Adamidis, the social media director for the Page International Screenwriting Awards and your host for the Writers Hangout, a podcast that celebrates the many From inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting the project made, and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry, and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hey writers, it's Sandy. Last Sunday night, December 14th, like the rest of the world. I saw that Rob Reiner was trending when I clicked on his name. I was hoping to see that Denzel Washington meme, but unfortunately. That wasn't the case. Nick Reiner, Rob and Michelle's, a 3-year-old son, fatally stabbed his parents at their Brentwood home. Nick Reiner is being held without bail At the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles on suicide watch, and it's in solitary confinement. when you're on the freeway going, through downtown, You see the Correctional Facility and it is one scary looking place. It's being reported that Nick was diagnosed with schizophrenia years ago, And recently his medication was changed. In the weeks leading up to the murders. What happened made me very sad and I cried throughout therapy the next day. I thought my feelings were because of the horrific way Rob and Michelle were killed. And it reminded me of my best friend's murder when she was four months pregnant. And yes, well that was true during my session, I realized. It was really more about someone in my own family who has a mental illness and how complicated and scary that can be, no matter how much you love that person. After therapy, I decided I wanted to do an episode on Rob and Michelle And try to understand what happened. so I reached out to a previous guest on the Writer's Hangout, Neil Nordling. Neil Nordling Is an author, interventionist, and former film and television producer. He is currently the founder of In Crisis Consultants, an organization that helps families navigate treatment options for addiction and mental health. Let's start the show. Neil welcome for the second time to the Writer's Hangout podcast. Sandy, thank you very much. I certainly appreciate it. Any way to get the word out? I'm there. You are, so perfect for this because you are a very successful producer who made the transition into, what you are doing now, Neil what is going on? What are the statistics of something like this happening? Sandy, unfortunately the statistics are saying that more and more people are getting ill. Or let's put it another way to look at it is we are now able to determine the illnesses that people have. It's not you drink the water and you get ill. I think we also have a. Better way of reaching out to people and people feeling okay, I can do something about this. which is what we want. But the bottom line right now, Sandy, is that we have a hundred million people in our country, H 12 and up, who are suffering from a mental disorder, substance use disorder, or both. that is 32% of the population of our country, age 12 and over. If you wanna visualize what how many people that is visualize this, that's the population of the United States, west of the Mississippi, with the exception of Texas and Louisiana. It's that many people. I can tell you that from what I do I get. Calls from people all over the country and it's all referrals. And then it's also people who have read my book and they call me. And I can tell you, Sandy, between the time I started 12 years ago to now, there's been one significant change. And that is mental illness is playing a much larger role in the illness of people. The amount of people who are suffering from mental illness has just jumped exponentially, at least in my practice. And just to be clear about this, there are four different diagnoses. One is just pure substance use disorder, and then there's just mental disorder. Then there's primary mental disorder, secondary substance use disorder, and then primary substance use disorder, secondary mental disorder. What that means is there's one disorder that's driving the other. I have experienced that. More people are coming to me with primary and mental disorder, secondary substance use disorder, which means a mental disorder is driving the substance use disorder. And after that it is just primary mental disorder. So that would mean that a lot of people who have mental disorders. Take care of it by self-medicating. Correct. And that's in the categories that you're talking about? That is, That is correct. And if there's one mental disorder, that's probably, again, I'm talking from my experience. Okay. If there's one disorder that's driving more primary disorder, it's trauma, especially with females. For example, in Oklahoma, one third of all females are suffering from some sort of physical, mental, experiential sexual trauma. Two thirds of the women in prison here are suffering from trauma and I call trauma the gateway drug. It's just it really, its presence is just so disruptive. I can tell you that then they're the cases that are just mental disorder. Now, I know that one reason you called me was because of what happened, that absolutely horrible situation with the Ryer family. And I can tell you, Sandy, that those situations do occur. I can tell you about a few of them, which I hadn't experienced. Okay. What's really key if anybody in our audience knows of or has in their family, someone who was, has a mental disorder and if you think that person has the possibility of either harming himself or herself or someone else. There are things you can do, but you have to do it. You don't sit back and say maybe he or she will just, come out of it. You have to take action now. I'll give you an example. One situation I had a 30, 31-year-old male who had developed schizophrenia and it was just getting worse. I can tell you that. More and more in my practice, and it's not just me, is that one of the reasons that people are developing schizophrenia is because the constant use of marijuana. Now, when I was in college, when I was in high school and in college, marijuana was, 3% THC. If you walk into any dispensary today, and it's gonna be at least 35%. THC, but what? What's being smoked by the young adults are they're vaping and they are inhaling THC, which is at 95 or a hundred percent. Wow. Now, am I allowed to use cuss words on this broadcast? I think in this situation, absolutely. It fucks you up. Okay. now, most people, it also depends on how much the marijuana's being used. Most people can use marijuana and just walk away from it. However, there are people who have what's called the ATK one gene. And it's hereditary, of course, and if you have that gene, your chances of having a psychosis, a psychotic break are much greater than those who don't have that gene. Now if I can interrupt you and you are not a doctor. I'm not a doctor this is just us having a conversation and in just a warning out there to the audience, if this triggers them, please turn off the podcast. But I really do think we need to explore everything that happened. Nick, are you thinking that Nick? What do you think that was going on with Nick? I have no idea. As you explain some of this, you have no idea. I have no idea. I'm not familiar with his situation at all. He, and I'm not gonna, he has been in and outta re rehab, I think 19, 17 times. Yeah. Lived down the street for a while because he refused to go back to rehab, but he I believe he started off at 14. Yeah. That's typical. That's very typical. I'm not familiar with the details of his situation. So I can't be detailed about that. But what I can say is that he's not the only one who is having this issue. And unfortunately, the family has really paid for it and it's nobody's fault. Okay. He's ill. He is a, what about the people who are saying or thinking that family had all the resources in the world, they should have taken care of it. I don't know about their particular situation, but I can tell you that why people call me is for that reason. And there are things that can be done such as I have found that most people will send someone to rehab because it's a rehab. the thoughts are is that it's one size fits all. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to send someone whose diagnosis matches the licensure of the particular treatment program because if you have someone whose primary substance use disorder, secondary mental disorder, you wanna send that individual to a facility whose licensure matches that. The same, the other way around with mental health, mental disorder. So I have no idea about their situation. I know that they are, were in the situation where, my God, they probably could get ahold of anybody and get, the help that they needed. But I can tell you that's a common mistake. Is that people don't send the individual to a facility that's a perfect match. It has to be a perfect match for that individual's illness. Now, I will tell you the use of marijuana that was responsible. For one of my client's, schizophrenia and Sandy, it was to the point where the paranoia was just extreme. What he used to do, because he thought that the government was listening to him in his house. Can we give him a name? Yeah. Call him Billy. So Billy was worried that the government was coming after him. Yeah. And certain parts of the government and certain organizations were out to kill him. While other organizations, he actually worked for other organizations. So it was a complete distortion of reality. I'll just, where did Billy live? Do you mind me asking, was he living at home? Was he living on his own? He was living on his own. And he had a house and he had destroyed the house. he was very ill and it got to the point where, he was proved to be a harm to himself and or someone else. So I had to get all the police, get them over to his house and pick him up because he was about to commit a crime. Against an individual. Okay. Yeah. I was just gonna ask you how could how did you make that happen? But now I know you said he was going to commit a crime, so now he was going to, basically he was gonna cut off somebody's head Wow. With a kitchen knife. So now I can tell you that in most cities you can't. Take somebody and put'em in a, an emergency unit just because, you think he needs to, or she needs to be in there, that person has to be judged as a danger to him or herself or to someone else. And if that's the case, then you can you can have a 70 in most cities, most states, you can have a 72 hour hold on that individual if you wanna hold that individual longer. the doctors have to be in agreement that yes, this individual is very ill. We need to hold him to him longer and even look, get to the point where you have to have a judge come to the hospital and basically have court in the hospital to judge and he will listen to the evidence. Whether this individual could hurt somebody does he need to remain in the hospital for further treatment? I had one person have to stay there for six weeks and the people who are ill, okay, they're not doing this on purpose. This is out of their control. They're ill, they have an illness, they have a disease. that's the hard part. That's the, it's so hard to. Understand and wrap your mind about that. And that's all I have to say and I have so much sympathy for fill in the blank, Sandy, I get invited. All the time they go to rehabs all over the country to tour the rehab and to meet the people and so forth. I went to one and it, this was specifically about mental illnesses, schizophrenia. And there was a group of 12 of us and the psychiatrist at this particular facility, we did some role playing. And one of us, one of the people, she was the volunteered to be the subject who she thought her life. Was just the perfect life. She had a husband. She had a family. She was extremely happy and you know what could go wrong? Where in fact when the therapist sat down and talked to her, he said, I'll just use the word sandy. He said, Sandy, everything that you believe is not the case, Your family is not actually your family, and they are trying to get a court order to get you away from them. In other words, what I'm saying to you, Sandy, is that everything she thought was not real. That was her reality, but it was not real. And it got to the point where she started to sob. can you imagine that your life right now, if all of a sudden you've realized that everything that you think is your life is going on is actually not true. That's, I never thought of it that way. That's schizophrenia. And we all started to tear up because, it's terrifying. Absolutely too. So you have to have respect for people who are suffering right from this dreaded disease. the whole point of, in my experience of sending people to treatment is you want them to reach what's called insight. So as an example, Billy. I sent him to a phenomenal place in Southern California and Oceanside, and it took him a year for him to finally realize, and this is involving evidence-based therapy and medication. You have to work with him together. Can't do one or the other. You have to do both together. And he called his mother. Now, I had been with his family for four years. Because I sent him to two previous places and he c he did great. He'd come home, he's doing great, but he would stop using his medication. And that's very prevalent. People say, I feel really good right now. I don't need to keep taking my medication. And that's when the shit hits the fan. Writers, I'm thrilled to tell you about our new sponsor. No Valium. This fantastic writing tool quickly turns chaos into clear well organized stories. Think of it as having a helpful story editor right by your side, Catching things like plot issues, pacing, hiccups, character and continuity glitches. I once wrote a story set in the summer only to have it snow while plane was landing. Such a stupid mistake, but we've all been there, right? Writers, I want you to all lean in. Close, close, close, close. Lean in close, because what I say next really matters to you. Noum never tries to write for you. it keeps your voice completely intact. While it catches everything that might break your story, it's a cleaner, faster way to see problems you can fix early instead of losing months in rewrites. Writing is hard enough. Stop the story headaches and actually finish your book or screenplay and make your writing journey so much easier and more enjoyable. And to get a free month of noum, use my exclusive promo code hangout at novell dot o. That's N-V-E-L-I-U-M dot SO. I'll spell that again. N-O-V-E-L-I-U-M-O-S as in Sam, O as in Oscar. And remember to get a free month of vellum, use my exclusive promo code. Hangout now back to the show. Okay, so this guy Billy, he finally realized, he called his mother. He said, mom I can't believe what I put you through. I am so sorry. I don't know how to apologize to you, because he reached insight. He realized that he has an illness and the person that he's being been for the last four years is not real. It's all made up in his mind. His mother's stabbed uncontrollably today he, he stays another four months. Today, he's a model citizen Sandy. Oh, that's wonderful thing to hear. he has his family back. He's working. He's doing great. But there's one particular story of a young girl. Uh, I've been with the family again for four years because this stuff doesn't, like you go in for treatment and presto, okay. You're right, you're good. You're fixed. It's not like that. Put it this way. When I got her to this particular place, it was the second place where she'd been and she was. Practically catatonic. I had doctors tell me, let's call her Eve. Eve will never ever be able to lead a normal life. She will have to be institutionalized for the rest of her life. I took her to this facility within six months, one of the owners of the facility says, me a videotape, you ready for this? She's singing karaoke. So the reason I'm telling you this is that there are success stories. There are, it's just that people have to know what is the right program and have the resources in order to afford the treatment. That's a whole other story that is a nightmare, and that situation is only getting worse. you wrote a book called The Right Rehab. Correct. And it's available on Amazon? Correct. And you did it under your pen name Walter Wolf. Correct. So I. I read it cover to cover. Thank you. I really loved it. And listeners, if you need any of this information, it is categorized beautifully. It's laid out beautifully, and I understood every page and that's hard to do to get across such complicated medical information. But it's a very easy read. The purpose of, I appreciate that. Thank you. The purpose of the book is to explain to people like myself, 15 years ago, you get that phone call at three in the morning that one of your loved ones is in crisis and you have no idea what to do. This book is for people just like that. That is, this is what you need to do step by step. Great. This is treatment. This is how you get the right treatment. This is how you stay away from the scammers who will take your money for as long as they're able. It's$150 billion business. The treatment business the addiction to mental health business. It's$150 billion in growing. So that's what the book does. It explains to the layman. This is treatment. This is what you need to do. And the reason why we had you on previously, and I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode, we broke down Sandra Bullock's 28 days. And just what the reality is and how the movie was portraying rehab and the costs and the people that are there and all that. Neil. It's 2025, what do we know about mental illness? And the different kinds of mental illness, just listeners out there, they can recognize this if there is somebody in their life and they can help. Okay. That's a very good question, and let me just start off by saying that, I'm now writing another book. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. the publisher asked me to write another book, but this time on how to find the right mental illness treatment. Okay. And I will tell you that adolescence, which is age 12 through 17, Sandy, 50% of all mental illnesses are developed during one's adolescence. 50% by the time one reaches 24 70 5% of mental illnesses are fully developed. Hence, parents have to pay particular attention to their kids. And if you see an odd sort of behavior, I'm not saying, somebody says somebody on fire, I'm talking about, odd behavior and you say yourself. That's a little odd. It doesn't mean the kid is crazy. It doesn't mean it. But what it does mean is that you as a responsible parent should go see a therapist, should see a specialist, and they're all different kinds of ways to find the right one. But that would be the responsible thing to do because when if something isn't caught during adolescence, there's hell to pay later on. Okay. That's a really important. Age group in terms of noticing if something is just a little off. See a professional. Okay. You've got to see a professional and you can only see more than one professional.'cause it's like everything else. One person's gonna think this and when another person's gonna think that possibly. But help is there. You just gotta do it. Okay. And this book will tell you how to do it and you know where you need to go. But mental illness is really broken down into two sets. Any mental illness, all mental illnesses and like such as all mental disorders and disorders like versus that are very few symptoms to mild impairment all the way up to. full blown schizophrenia. That's one big class or set? That's called a MI or any mental illness. Okay. Any mental is all mental illnesses. Okay. Then there's a subset of that and they're not mutually exclusive, but there's a subset of that and 62 million people. In our country are suffering from some sort of a MI any mental illness from, let's say your anxiety, depression generalized anxiety disorder or and major depressive disorder. But it's the ones all the way up to full blown schizophrenia and yeah. Could you define schizophrenia for us? Schizophrenia. it's characterized by episodes of psychosis or psychotic breaks, and that's where a person loses touch with reality. it's like what I was talking about before. that person believes in a reality that is not real. And versus having false beliefs or hearing voices that are not there. And I was saying earlier. one of the reasons that comes on is because of this ATK one gene and the heavy use of marijuana. And if you are have that gene and you've developed a psychotic break, you are seven times more likely to eventually developed schizophrenia. This is for, I'm gonna, I'm gonna interrupt you while I was interrupting you. Can you test for that gene? Yes. Oh yeah, for sure. Really? Oh, yeah. Th this is all based upon a a very thorough study in New Zealand several years ago. And it's generally accepted that, there are plays I send people and they test for the, at K one gene w without question. But a psychotic break is when somebody loses, like sense of reality. And that person is believing in something, which is oh my it's just not there. And now most people, if it's driven by marijuana, most people you can take'em to the emergency room and within, a few hours or several hours. Okay. And he or she responds, comes back to reality. Unfortunately, there are some people who never get out it. That's the danger. Oh, never get out it. Those are. Like Billy, and I don't know about Nick I happen to watch. Being Charlie. Yeah. His the movie based on things that he went through and he has spoken about that he trashed the guest house that he lived in. Yeah. And that was also portrayed in the movie also. So he did have breaks, I would assume. It. You would assume so. Something drove him if in fact he's found guilty. They're talking about this party at Conan and Brian's house. He had a Christmas party the night before. The murders happened and Rob and Nick were arguing very loudly, which, if you know the Reiners, they're not yelling at parties. of course, I have no idea. I, I don't know, and I have no right to say what his issue was'cause I simply don't know. But I will say that you want to make sure that you have a correct diagnosis is what you want to do. And there are ways, for instance, I have sent people to facilities and sometimes that individual is too acute for a particular facility. There's certain steps that you can take. There's one particular facility does not end this country. And you say what you wanna send them to where, This place works miracles. I'm telling you. can you tell us or is it a secret? It's in Mexico. It's in Mexico, yeah. Oh yeah. And I have two people there now, and they, but you gotta have people there for a minimum of nine months to a year. This stuff takes time. It is not like you take your car into the mechanic and within that a couple days, okay, you're fixed. It's not like that. And anyway so I just wanted to say that one of the subset of a MI, any mental illness is called SMI or Serious Mental Illness. out of the 62 million people with any mental illness, 15 million are suffering from SMI, which means that their lives are completely on hold because of this illness. So sad. Yeah. It's, yeah. Yeah. But there's reason for Hope, Sandy. Hey, Neil thank you. Thank you so much for talking us through all that. Did you ever work or meet Rob. I met him through some mutual friends. And, we would see each other at, at dinners and parties and I went over to his house a couple of times to play tennis with him. Really he was wonderful. He was wonderful. how was his tennis game? He was good. He was good. Matter of fact, he was, we were discussing his childhood and at some point, apparently he had been a really excellent baseball player. I never knew that. And he, according, it was a really fascinating conversation, but at some point it was the possibility of him actually playing pro was a possibility. It was being talked about. But he was a brilliant filmmaker. Brilliant. Just brilliant. And it. Not only for his family, but what a loss. And his wife too. Of course. You have to include her. What? What a loss. And that family, oh my goodness. They're gonna be scarred. It's just, yeah. How do you get through this? I was lucky enough to meet Rob about a year ago. I know. Carl and Annie because my friend Judy worked for Carl and I happened to do work for Annie, so I have gotten to know the family, but I never met Rob. And at work, about a year ago, I was coming back from Gelson's or something and our suite was next to they were editing. Spinal Tap two. And I just was lucky enough to be on the walkway when Rob was around and I just, said hi. Introduced myself to him. I used to get his you know how Rob During elections, his picks go out. I used to get those and so I just mentioned to him that I got his picks and he's been helping me pick people for years. Sweet as can be. So nice. I wish Hollywood had more Ron Reers. Yeah, Neil, thank you so much for taking the time outta your day to just, again, help us get through this and this is real stuff out there and we're all dealing. With mental illness in our families and our friends, and there is help out there. And again, Neil, can you tell us where we can get your book and the name of your company again, because I just wanna give you the biggest shout outs because you've just given us so much of your time. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. The book, the right rehab. Written by Walter Wolf, my pen name you can get off of Amazon for sure. And if anybody wanted to reach out to me, that's easily done. You just go to in Crisis consultants. Com in crisis consultants.com and you'll be able to easily get ahold of me and, The thing is that Sandy, so many people need help and it's families and you know how I can tell, especially mothers who have been through this for several years and they've just had enough. They don't cry. They have cried all their tears out and they're at the point, I've had enough. I can't do this anymore. You gotta help. I'm, but in a way do it, not oh, I can't do this. I can't. No. Do it because they've had enough of this. And it's mothers man. they're the ones who like carry the load. I'm telling you. They really do. But I gotta tell you, Sandy, the greatest people on this planet are people who are in recovery. They are the sweetest, they're the kindest, they're the most caring people you will ever know. and it's emotionally, it is just oh my God. And it makes everything worthwhile What I do. And that's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your positive feedback will help us keep the show going so we can continue bringing you more future episodes. Remember, keep writing. The world needs your stories.