\n\tI started Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction<\/a> in the fall of 2015 with my friend Chris O\u2019Connor. Chris and I met at rehab \u2014 Mountainside in rural Connecticut \u2014 and we bonded over our crazy drug stories and similar worldview. I was a huge fan of the Howard Stern Show and knew we could adopt that unfiltered, talk show style for a podcast about addiction and recovery. We made 44 episodes by September of 2016, when Nick Reiner came over for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFrom my faithful Howard listening, I had heard Nick and his dad, Rob Reiner, talking about their new movie, Being Charlie<\/a>, on the show. It was a film Nick had written with a friend he met in rehab, and it was all about drug addiction and recovery. I surmised he would be a great guest on Dopey.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBeing Charlie felt like a thinly veiled take on Nick\u2019s relationship with his successful and famous father, a Hollywood legend if ever there was one. Like most of the country, I was a big fan of Rob Reiner. Watching All in the Family on TV felt like it was a broadcast of Sunday at my grandparents\u2019 house. I grew up on a steady Gen X movie diet of The Princess Bride, Stand By Me and A Few Good Men. I also worked (and still do) for Katz\u2019s Deli, the iconic restaurant on East Houston Street that Rob Reiner immortalized in his classic comedy, When Harry Met Sally.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tI believed Nick\u2019s perspective and stories would be valuable for our listeners \u2014 and I was beyond excited at the fantasy of potentially having someone of Rob\u2019s stature involved with our little show. Nick was super psyched to come on and talk drugs, addiction, and dumb shit with me and Chris. He fit in perfectly even though Chris and I were abstinent from drugs and alcohol at the time and working 12-step programs.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\tNick\u2019s recovery was different from ours. He was trying a harm reductionist method \u2014 admitting to smoking weed and drinking a bit, but trying to stay away from coke, meth, and heroin. Nick also spoke of the pressures of being a Reiner (the family\u2019s Hollywood bonafides extended to Nick\u2019s grandfather, Carl Reiner<\/a>), while trying to pursue a creative career. Living up to the legacy was next to impossible. And worse for Nick, he realized that so many of his interactions were transactional, with people wanting to get close to his dad.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAround that time, I was also working on a parody clothing brand called Oy Vey. It predated Dopey and was my first attempt at building something while sober. The idea was culture-jamming \u2014 knockoff versions of familiar brands like Obey and Nike, flipped to Oy Vey. It didn\u2019t succeed. Nick was our first and only celebrity model. He wore a 1-800-Oy Vey T-shirt in the style of Drake, as seen in this selfie he sent to me in 2017.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tNick Reiner in a 2017 selfie<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of David Manhe<\/p>\n \n\tI wanted his dad to see our Nike-style Oy Vey hat, figuring Rob would get a kick out of it. Nick said he would pass one along and I was pleased. I didn\u2019t consider that asking him to give Rob Reiner a hat would set him down that same painful path \u2014 where people were more interested in Rob\u2019s approval and attention than in Nick.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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