Stephen Baldwin on the Root of His Addiction | American Recovery

Growing up in the Baldwin family with six children was a little bit like, uh, like the Brady brunch on a whole lot of espresso. That was kind of, kind of the environment. I'll give you an example. Alec and my brother Daniel get in a fight. Uh, my mother steps in between them. Uh, my brother Daniel goes to brunch with my brother Alec and my mom gets in the way and my mom's dentures go flying like this. Now I was a little kid. I was there. Now that wasn't, you know, two brothers got in a fight and somebody hit their mother. That was my mother stepping in front of a punch from one of my brothers to another brother, you know, to protect, you know, incredible drama in all of our youth and upbringing. Uh, another kind of famous story is I considered myself a bit of a, as the youngest brother, as the youngest child of the six, I was a bit of a Houdini when I was growing up. And, uh, the only way my older siblings would deal with me was, uh, giving me certain challenges. I can't believe. So one time I can't imagine how that got abused. Well, no, can you imagine like me going to Alec and Daniel Baldwin and saying like, you know, like, Hey man, you know, I'll bet you 20 bucks. You know, you can't chain me up and throw me in the closet and I won't escape. They were like, yeah, they would take like duct tape. There was no way I could get out. But I found ways to escape. One time they rolled me up in a throw rug, took three of my dad's belts and put it around this throw rug and cinched it up and told me, you know, Oh, now let's see if you can escape from this throw rug. What they didn't tell me was they were going to put me in a bathtub and turn the water on. So they put me head first into a bathtub, turn the water on. I got this rug rolled around me with belts on it. After 40 minutes, you want to talk about having some kind of psychological damage from your youth? Alec and Daniel, it was actually Daniel and Billy threw me in this throw rug, throw me in a bathtub. They turned the water on. They're outside the door laughing. And over time the water in the bathtub is getting absorbed by the rug. But after like 30, 40 minutes and they're laughing outside, the water starts going over my face. So my brother Daniel comes in with a BIC pen and he pulls out the middle and he puts it in my mouth. So now I have a little BIC pen to give me another couple of minutes of breathing, but the water's going up my nose. It was awful. You know, my mom went to the bottom of the stairs. She said, when your father gets home, you, you boys are in trouble. Stop drowning Steven. Little did I know all of those fabulous memories Aaron would lead to cocaine in the future. So growing up, Baldwin was weird just because I was Alec Baldwin's kid, but my dad, not my brother. Once my brother who had been working at studio 54, he was a waiter. Somebody said, Oh, go to this audition. He went, they said, you're terrible. But this other casting director is doing a soap opera here in New York called the doctors. My brother's first professional job was called the doctors. And it was a soap opera in New York city. And Aaron, I got to tell you, imagine my dad who made 27 grand a year, raising six kids in, in New York in the seventies and eighties. When his oldest son came back and said, Hey man, I just signed this contract. And in the first year I'm going to make 150 grand. My dad was like, Oh, maybe the world needs less lawyers and doctors and a few more actors. And that's kind of how that was born. It was my, my brothers and I getting into the movie business was born much more so out of the socioeconomic aspects of it than anything else. So your brother was the first to kind of make that leap, correct? Absolutely. What did that feel like to you? Like emotionally watching your brother transcend into like new heights? Well, what were you doing at the time? When he launched his professional career, I was ninth grade, something like that. And, uh, I think, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of fuzzy and hazy in the, in the, in the disbelief of it, you know, that, you know, four brothers from, you know, a non-traditional Hollywood family, you know, a lot of guys that, that have played the roles that my brothers and I have played are folks that were born into the business a lot of the time, you know, but I just think that the thing that was more of a wake up call about it all was, and I say this, Alec will slap me now, but I don't care. I think Daniel and William and Steven said like, what, what do you mean he got a job on a soap opera? Like what, what, isn't it harder than that? So there was really this, well, if he can do it and we all play football on weekends and beat the heck out of each other, then if he figured it out, maybe we should give it a try. So with all of this going on, you're watching your brother now get into Hollywood soap operas, all this. And when was the first time that you tried like, when were you introduced to narcotics as a whole? And what was it? Well, let me pick it up from there. So, so there was already kind of a foundation of abuse, you know, like if, if before Hollywood, we were drinking on weekends cause we were athletes and, you know, being jocks, it was just always a part of your, totally part of the norm in, in, in that town at that time in that Friday night lights kind of way. But then once Alec started working then Billy started modeling, then Daniel started to get, I was still the youngest. I had to wait. I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for college for a year after that. So in the segue of all of the rest of us kind of getting into it potentially, you know, there, there, there was stuff Aaron, like, you know, Planet Hollywood. So Alec gets invited to go to a Planet Hollywood opening in Vegas. Well, the folks that were in charge of that were like, well, bring all the boys, you know, like, why not let them all run around, you know? And that's, you know, that was Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was the biggest movie stars in the world. So again, here's a little Stevie. Hey, maybe the rest of the Baldwin boys will be actors too. But you know, the exposure in, in, in that environment to drugs and alcohol was magnified by a thousand percent. Just, just you're in those rooms. How did it, did, would you say then that when you were intoxicated, when you had, when you, I'll be more specific, when you felt the effects of it, did that make you feel better in those environments or what, what happened? So that's kind of the brothers Hollywood transition of addiction before that. Like I told you, when I was a senior in high school and I went to my senior prom, I mean, the boys got an eight ball readily available, you know, where we were. Um, the problem is a Graham went to one of my guys, another Graham went to another one of my guys and one of Graham went to me. And then another half went to somebody else, you know, that was all the money. So if the limo was coming at seven, the problem was at five 30, I'd already finished my Well, you and I can relate on that. That's very much how I was. The limo picks me up. I go get everybody else. We're on our way. I'm like, Hey, man, has anybody got a little, you know, a little something, something they're like, dude, where's your grandma? That should have been a sign when I was a senior in high school and I did my Graham pretty quick. And that's that connection you're asking me about. Cocaine was the devil for me. Cocaine was no quiz. It was, it was the most controlling thing in the natural of life I've ever experienced. Folks, if you enjoyed this short video, check out the link right there for the full episode.