I've spent decades working with young adults who are drowning in addiction and serious mental health disorders.
Not on paper. Not in theory.
In living rooms. In ERs. In parking lots at 3 a.m.
In homes where parents are terrified and ashamed to say it out loud.
I've taken firearms away from young men and women more times than I can count.
Not because their parents were reckless.
But because they were trying to survive something no one prepared them for.
The recent deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, have shaken a lot of families I work with—not because it's rare, but because it's familiar. It's the kind of tragedy that parents quietly fear every day and are told they're overreacting for naming.
Here's what the public often misses:
Parents are being asked to manage psychosis, addiction, and violence with tools designed for a gentler era.
Restraining Orders Against Your Own Child? That's Not a Legal Issue. That's a Moral Crisis.
People love to say, "Why didn't the parents just get a restraining order?"
That question usually comes from someone who's never sat across from a mother shaking, whispering:
"If I do that, he'll never forgive me."
"If I do that, he'll end up on the street."
"If I do that, I'll be the reason he dies."
Parents aren't weak.
They're bonded. Biologically, spiritually, existentially.
Asking a parent to file a restraining order against their child—especially one in addiction or psychosis—is asking them to override the deepest instinct they have.
And the system offers very little support when they do.
Meth Changed the Game. Completely.
In the last five years, I've seen a level of meth-induced psychosis that is different than anything earlier in my career.
This isn't the meth of the 90s.
This is prolonged paranoia, delusions, auditory hallucinations, and violent ideation that can last months after cessation.
I've watched loving, nonviolent kids turn into strangers who believe:
- their parents are plotting against them
- neighbors are spying
- voices are issuing commands
And here's the uncomfortable truth no one wants to say:
Some parents are now living with real physical danger in their own homes.
The Firearm Question No One Wants to Touch
Let me be very clear and very careful here.
I am not advocating violence.
I am not advocating escalation.
I am not advocating fear-based living.
But I am saying this:
We are asking parents to protect themselves in a landscape that no longer resembles the one our laws were written for.
In certain extreme cases—psychosis, threats, repeated violence—parents may need legal, trained, responsible means of self-protection, alongside:
- immediate clinical intervention
- mandatory treatment options
- crisis response teams that actually show up
Pretending otherwise doesn't make families safer.
It just makes tragedies more likely.
Cutting Off the Money Saved Lives—Even When It Broke Hearts
At one point, I was treating half of Malibu.
Private chefs. Black cards. Ocean views.
And guess what?
Nothing changed.
Not until the money got cut off.
Not until the consequences became real.
I've watched parents fund addiction out of love, terror, and guilt—until there was nothing left but devastation.
The most painful truth I've learned:
Sometimes turning your back is the only thing that gives a child a chance to turn toward life.
That doesn't mean abandonment.
It means boundaries with teeth.
It means values over rescue.
It means tolerating being hated today so your child can be alive tomorrow.
We Live in a Different World Now
This generation is dealing with:
- more potent drugs
- weaker social structures
- constant stimulation
- collapsing rites of passage
And parents are being gaslit into believing that love alone will fix it.
It won't.
Love without structure becomes enabling.
Compassion without limits becomes chaos.
And silence—especially around danger—becomes deadly.
A Seano Take on Real Options
What actually helps:
- earlier involuntary treatment pathways for psychosis + addiction
- parent protection laws that don't criminalize desperation
- mandatory family education on meth psychosis
- financial boundary coaching for families
- community-based crisis teams that respond fast and humanely
And most of all:
Permission for parents to tell the truth without shame.
You are not a bad parent because you're scared.
You are not a monster for needing boundaries.
And you are not failing because love wasn't enough.
Sometimes love looks like stepping back.
Sometimes love looks like saying no.
Sometimes love looks like surviving.
And sometimes—tragically—it looks like grief.
We owe families better than slogans.
We owe them real options.
Because this world has changed—and pretending it hasn't is costing lives.
Love,
SEANO