The Reiner Tragedy Was Preventable

The Reiner Tragedy: How Destructive Conditioning Can Lead To Tragedy

Our hearts are broken by the Reiner tragedy that has taken social media by storm and stunned the nation. A beloved couple and national treasure were brutally murdered by their son after a fight at a holiday party. We’re all having trouble letting that sink it. How can something like this happen?

The media often uses the word troubled, when describing a person who has become violent or creates chaos. Troubled is a vague term which covers mental illness, emotional problems, and addiction, lumping together a wide variety of issues that millions of families face.

Almost all of us struggle with emotional problems at some point or another in our lives. Emotional problems are mental health issues that need addressing. All families deal with a struggler, and the word troubled has stigma attached to it. Let’s be clear that coping with the struggles of suffering loved ones is not easy. But when struggles get out of hand, families need to know what to do about it. If you’re a family coping with addiction or a mental illness you cannot solve it with love alone, and you need help to stay grounded and whole.

Unpacking the Reiner Tragedy To Help Others

Mental illness can include personality and character disorders, depression, anxiety, brain disorders like schizophrenia and a wide variety of neurodiversity. Addiction is a progressive disease of brain reward that has both mental and physical components both of which are challenging to manage and overcome. Brain function is negatively affected as users of alcohol, substances, sex, gambling, devices and other obsessions, even food, take hold. When a loved one can’t stop their risky and dangerous behaviors, family members have a painful dilemma. Keep them close, or detach for personal safety. We advocate for detachment for personal safety and emotional wellness.

As a family, we have experienced both mental illness and addiction. While they both present challenges, they have one thing in common. All family members are negatively impacted especially when management isn’t working. So what do you do about it? Get therapy. Get specialists on the case. Decide when you can’t and shouldn’t take it any longer. No one should be bankrupted by repeatedly trying to save someone, especially when they become violent.

Generally speaking, there are plenty of incidents and warnings before a loved one commits the ultimate violence of murder. Stealing, threatening, breakdowns, even physical attacks. What gets in the way of healthy solutions (like banishment when necessary) is often the destructive conditioning that accompanies a family’s desperate attempt to save a loved one no matter what the consequences to the rest of the family. Parents may want to save an adult child even as that adult is destroying everything they love.

I feel very strongly about this issue because I have lived experience and know firsthand how high the stakes are when addiction gets out of hand and families don’t set boundaries. Here’s why.

I am a person in recovery from addiction, and I spent eight years struggling to get sober. I understand the struggle, and the struggle is real.
As a recovery advocate since 2011, I work to help remove the stigma of addiction and encourage people to understand how addiction and recovery work. Addiction is not about being troubled. Compassion helps, but it’s not enough.
As the author of self-help books, I always focus on family healing, including the importance of healing after addiction and family dysfunction.

You may not agree with me here, but I know a little bit about what I’m going to write; and sadly, the Reiner tragedy proves my point. Dealing with grief after violence.

Addiction And Mental Illness Are Family Diseases

When even one member of a family is struggling with addiction and mental health issues, the rest of the family will be affected. Let’s also be very clear about the fact that in the case of the Reiner tragedy, the “troubled son” was both addicted to narcotics and also had serious mental health challenges. The challenges faced by this beloved family were many. Maybe his mental health issues are organic. Very likely longtime drug use also negatively affected his brain function.

Either way, the Reiners tried to help a son who had talked openly on podcasts about his history with drug addiction and violence. In his own admission, he destroyed a guest house, and he probably did much worse as the years passed. He also had a history of traumatizing his siblings and parents, demanding money, and having psychotic breaks due to his meth use.

What should a family do with a history of violence, a history of untreated addiction and psychosis. The damage to the other children was recorded and unavoidable, and a loved son was an unsafe person in every way.

Families shouldn’t allow a verbally and physically abusive family member to continue on with aggressive behavior. As we said, the family becomes desensitized to it, even conditioned to chaos and danger. Addiction is a progressive disease. It doesn’t get better if left untreated.

The Reiner Tragedy: Violence Got Worse

Family wellness depends on boundaries. If you can restore your relationships with your family and get along with them that is the best option where addiction is present. However, restoring family health and safety only works if family members can behave, treat each other with respect, listen, AND apologize. It’s not about being perfect but it is about being accountable and safe for the people you love and who love you.

If a family member can’t communicate in healthy ways, work on their recovery and be safe, parents and siblings don’t owe them anything. Too many families are destroyed by untreated addiction and mental illness. Where there is a lifetime of evidence that helping does not help (even makes things worse), then removing an adult child may be the very best option. It could save your life.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: Domestic Violence Support