Some addicts 12-step their way to sobriety; others find God.
Nick Reiner kicked drugs by writing a screenplay.
After four years of bouncing in and out of rehab centers, the 22-year-old has a movie to show for it: “Being Charlie.” Loosely based on his own druggy odyssey and written with Matt Elisofon, whom he met in rehab, it’s directed by Rob Reiner — Nick’s dad.
Connections help. But Nick insists fame cuts both ways.
“I live under quite a shadow,” he tells The Post, his father beside him. “It’s annoying questioning every friendship you’ve ever been in: ‘Is it me, or who had me?’”
Rob — himself the son of entertainment royalty, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks’ favorite straight man — says he never gave Nick or his siblings the “Just say no to drugs” talk.
“I’m a child of the ’60s, so I would have felt I was a hypocrite,” says the 69-year-old director. “There wasn’t anyone I knew who didn’t do something … People go through a period and come out the other end.” Then again, he says, he didn’t start at 15 — the age Nick was when he attended a pill-popping party in LA where one kid OD’d. Terrified, Rob and his wife, Michele, packed Nick off to the first of what would be 18 rehab centers.
“To be honest, we overreacted,” Rob says. “It’s one thing to keep someone safe, but most of these programs are punitive.”
Like the teenager in “Being Charlie,” Nick cycled in and out of programs, making friends, only to lose them. “Kids I’d sleep next to for six months, to hear they died is shocking,” he says. “People die from this.”
They also become homeless. “It was all right,” Nick deadpans of his own days on the street in Texas, Maine and New Jersey. “It was a change of scenery!” (Rob barks with laughter.) “I’m so grateful I’m still alive, and I can say I’m more than a spoiled rich kid.”
‘I’m so grateful I’m still alive, and I can say I’m more than a spoiled rich kid.’
- Nick Reiner
Three years ago, Nick and his parents decided enough was enough. “It got old,” Nick says of doing drugs. “You have to make the decision that this is not a life you want to live anymore, and you have to find a fulfilling replacement.”
He found it in co-writing “Being Charlie,” the filming of which was a kind of therapy in itself. “Reliving it helped us understand each other better,” Rob says.
It also made Nick appreciate his old man. “The hardest part was realizing I didn’t know anything, and should probably listen to him because he’s been doing this for years,” says Nick, whose previous favorite Rob Reiner film is 1986’s “Stand by Me.”
“I’m lucky to have really caring parents who were able to say they made mistakes, and made it easier for me to say so, too,” adds Nick, who’s now living with friends and co-writing “something for TV.”
Surprise: It’s a comedy.