Actor Daniel Baldwin describes 25-year cocaine battle
By Amy Batista, Special Writer
EAST WINDSOR — Nationally recognized speakers including actor Daniel Baldwin and former Gov. Richard Codey united for the first New Jersey Mental and Behavioral Health Symposium on Wednesday.
The event, held at the Windsor Ballroom and National Conference Center, was held to promote awareness and inspire change in the mental and behavioral health fields, according to organizers.
“This is a pretty big day,” said Legacy Treatment Service Chief Executive Officer Roy Leitstein. “If you take a look around the room it’s filled with 200 people plus from the state of New Jersey, some from across the bridge, folks from out west that were fortunate enough to come in today.”
The Legacy Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to raise awareness and support for Legacy Treatment Services, according to a press release.
Presenters included keynote speaker actor, producer, director and behavioral health advocate Daniel Baldwin; Director, Integrated Care for the Under-served of Northeastern New Jersey and School of Psychology Professor Fairleigh Dickinson University Dr. Robert McGrath; and Founder and CEO of Soba Recovery Centers Gregory Hannley.
The presenters covered topics ranging from a need for greater mental health care, the importance of an holistic approach to treatment in addiction recovery, a personal story of experience and treatment, and how these issues permeate society and touch every life.
In his keynote address, Mr. Baldwin talked about his 25-year addiction with cocaine.
Mr. Baldwin said he was a “social model addict.”
“I was very social and I was usually hanging around with models when I was using,” he said.
Since becoming sober in 2006, he resumed his acting career and has since become vocal about helping others struggling with addiction and recovery, according to the program.
“When I finally got sober, after going to rehab nine times I went to all of the places after my insurance ran out and (they) said ‘we’re not sending you again’ and so I was laying out the $50,000 plus a month myself and I was in a position fortunately to have access to that kind of money, but I was around people that used that had no access,” he said. “Obviously, one of things that I’ve always wanted to address in my life is how I could make it better people for people who were less fortunate than me or are less insured or who don’t have access to that kind of care.”
He said that Mr. Hannley was his sponsor and mentor.
“I do give him credit for saving my life,” he said.
He said that Mr. Hannley had sat him down and asked what had worked and hasn’t worked.
“We had compiled a very small list of what had worked over the 25-year battle that I had with cocaine,” he said, adding that the “what hasn’t worked” list was much longer.
He said he stayed in his program for 18 months.
“The correlation of the amount of time that you stay in recovery in a facility and the stages of it going through the rehabilitation phase, which is the standard of about 30 days and some people need more care,” he said.
He said the first week to 10 days requires some sort of medication usually to take you off of whatever you were on to just relax the addict.
He said he was a survivor of fiscal and sexual abuse as well as a grand mal epileptic who had the most accurate seizure pattern ever seen at Columbian Presbyterian Hospital.
He said he had seizures twice a year that each lasted 20 minutes or longer and the last one he had was in 1973 after being put on a medication.
He said he used to anesthetize himself and make those feelings go away.
“I was a diehard addict must worse than what was reported,” he said, adding that he put himself in very dangerous situations.
He said he eventually started getting pains down his arm every time he took a hit.
“I’m a pretty well educated guy and I know what the signs are,” he said. “I kept thinking to myself do I want my children to read this article ‘Daniel Baldwin found dead from drug overdose.’”
He said he kept running that image in his head.
“Now, the addict (in me) said ‘what you should probably do is make the hits a little bit smaller and wait 30 minutes,’” he said, adding that he would watch the clock at the end of the bed and as he did the hits his arm would get numb and his chest would start to tighten up.
He said after that session he had a real healthy fever and he sleep for a week and he knew his heart couldn’t take it anymore and once again asked for help.
He recalled the first time he was introduced to cocaine when he started his acting career and was doing a set as a standup comedian at the famous Improv in Los Angles where he was invited to a party.
“I was presented with the greatest pick up line of all time,” he said. “This girl walked up to me and she had this tiny little fish net top on with no bra I could tell and said ‘how you doin’ baby. What magazine cover did you just crawl off of to come meet Ms. Penny.’”
He said she proceeded to walk him into a bathroom and locked the door.
“I had never smoked cocaine before in my life,” he said. “She did a hit of cocaine. I picked up a chunk like the size of my thumb not realizing how much you are suppose to do or not do.”
He said he remembered grabbing the sink and holding onto it because of how high he got from it.
“I, literally to myself, looked up and said ‘wow does it get any better than this,’” he said. “When they say one time (is all it takes.)”
He said six months later while he was on a TV series, he was in rehab trying to hide it from the producers because he smoked every single day.
“I could not stay away from it,” he said. “I could not stop. I learned all the great catch phrases.”
You can buy heroin anywhere, he added.
“It is easier for an adolescent to buy heroin in the State of New Jersey and around this country right now than it is to buy alcohol,” he said. “I can find heroin 10 minutes from here I can bet you my life I could. It’s that prevalent for these kids.”
Mr. Hannley founded Soba which is a social model recovery community after he found himself needing “treatment 10 years ago.”
“It exists because of problems that I found,” said Mr. Hannley. “By the time I had landed in treatment I had been many things,” he said as he listed many jobs ranging from a boxing manager to training tigers. I had pretty much spent my life trying to figure out where my place was and I could never figure out where that was or why I had done so many different things until I landed in the treatment world.”
He said the treatment took every cent that he had and if it wasn’t for the few people that he had by his side, he would have been homeless afterward.
“So I was your typical person,” he said, adding that would help your health insurance would pay for the treatment.
He said he found out it wasn’t true.
“If you didn’t have $50,000 in case, you didn’t walk in the door,” he said, adding in the Malibu area where there were 30 treatment centers. “Some of them were $70,000 and they were going to take $100,000 or $150,000.” He said based on how much money you had and depended how long you stayed.
“I thought it was designed to help people get better,” he said. “I guess now looking back it was a little naive.”
He said he found out later that it’s easier to medicate people through treatment than it is to treat them.
There is now a movie that both Mr. Hannley and Mr. Baldwin worked on with a few other big names called “The Wisdom to Know the Difference.”
“It’s been called the recovery film of all times,” Frank Jones said. “It has now racked up 17 awards and it is currently being talked about in Hollywood with various companies and distributors to see how it is going to be distributed, how soon and how widely.”
He said it would be a film that will bring great healing and lift the dialogue and the public discourse on the whole issue of addiction and the need for a true recovery.
Later, former Gov. Richard Codey was presented the Heart of Hope Award by Mr. Leitstein.
“I liken him to a real life superhero,” Mr. Leitstein said. “If we all sat in a room together we could list what’s wrong our mental and behavioral health system and access to care. Gov. Codey’s entire legislative career goes back to 1974 and it is encompassed by common sense legislation and advocacy that everyone knows and nobody does.”
he said Mr. Codey spent his career fighting for people who needed an advocate.
“He fought for people who needed to be fought for,” he said. “He went undercover into a homeless shelter.”
Gov. Codey has dedicated his work and has been a significant contributor to making a difference in New Jersey’s mental health system. He has been a leading voice for mental health reform for more than 30 years, according to the program.
“This is such a tough thing for all of us,” said Former Gov. Codey.
In 2013, Gov. Codey and his wife, Mary Jo, founded The Codey Fund with the mission to ensure that compassionate, quality mental healthcare is accessible to everyone, and that the stigma associated with mental illness is overcome through public awareness and education.
“My wife has had a tremendous fight against mental illness,” he said. “A lot of people think that my decades long advocacy of mental health stems from that yet it stems from the fact that I was born in a funeral home. My parents and grandfather had started the business and very often I was asked to go up to the psychiatric hospital, in my case Greystone, to pick up a body.”
He recalled the time he went to pick up a body with someone who was around his age and he told him about all the horror stories going on at the hospital.
“I always said to myself if he ever got in a position to help these people I’m going to,” he said.
He said after he got married his wife got pregnant two years later and had their first child and all of a sudden something was wrong.
He said after she delivered their first son, Kevin, she really wasn’t interested in holding him and she wasn’t talking to anyone including her family and friends.
“Eventually when we got home she told me she was very depressed,” he said. “She asked me to get her help.”
He said she was admitted to the hospital and eventually for treatment at Carrier.
“After 20 shock therapies, I can’t tell you how many other experiences and by her 44th birthday and today wakes up with a smile on her face,” he said. “You can get well and you will get well if you have the proper treatment.”
He said that obviously she was fortunate it enough to be married to someone who had a good insurance plan, he added.
“It’s as simple as that,” he said. “Without it, who knows. “My wife would tell you that one day of depression is worse than 12 years of breast cancer. If the first lady can (get depressed), anybody can,” he said.
He said more people suffer from mental illness by far than breast cancer.
“It just shows you the kind of stigma and the kind of embarrassment that is attached to mental illness,” he said. “People don’t want to talk about it. It’s all about getting your loved one the talk about.”
It’s up to all of us to talk about the stigma, he added.
Industry leaders, care providers, business leaders and policy makers were in attendance for the conference.
“Our goal is for the symposium is to help de-stigmatize mental illness, while cooperatively increasing our understanding and success in overcoming the inherent challenges faced,” said Mr. Jones in a press release. “We expect the event will raise the public discourse on mental and behavioral health, encourage a deeper engagement to fight the stigma, and to continue to inspire the changes necessary to accomplish both.”