Actor-director Daniel Baldwin visits Waukon during growing film festival to talk about the foundation of his award-winning film, “My Promise to P.J.”


Hollywood meets Main Street in Waukon, delivering a sobering message ... Veteran actor, director and producer Daniel Baldwin, one of the famous Baldwin brothers of movie and television fame, is pictured above (far right) at the S&D Cafe in Waukon with two of his daughters, Finley and Avis (left to right in photo center), along with Waukon resident and actress, producer, director and singer Katie O’Regan (far left), creator of the Spring Grove-Caledonia Film Festival and founder of Sacred Noise Society, Inc. Visiting the Midwest as the special guest of the second annual Spring Grove-Caledonia Film Festival held July 23-25 in the Spring Grove and Caledonia, MN area, Baldwin also spoke at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Waukon Sunday, July 25 following the 10 a.m. Mass, speaking on the impact of the opioid crisis and other drug addiction, sharing his own experience with rehabilitation and talking about the documentary film he created based on that experience and that of a family friend whose battle with addiction proved fatal. The documentary, “My Promise to P.J.”, won the award for Best Documentary at the film festival. Standard photo by Joe Moses.

by Julie Berg-Raymond

Daniel Baldwin has a mission - and it’s one that speaks directly to an issue of immense concern in the rural Midwest, and the country-at-large. Opioid addiction is a crisis that, according to “The Opioid Crisis in Rural and Small Town America,” by Shannon M. Monnat and Khary K. Rigg, has in recent years seen the most dramatic increase in opioid deaths in the rural Midwest.

The long-time actor, director and producer - one of the four “Baldwin brothers,” along with Stephen, William and Alec, all actors – spoke after the 10 a.m. Mass at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Waukon Sunday, July 25, while in the area as a special guest of the Spring Grove-Caledonia Film Festival. Baldwin’s multiple award-winning documentary, “My Promise to P.J.,” one of the festival’s featured films, won its award for  “Best Documentary.”

Writing for imdb.com, Andy Bowles describes “My Promise to P.J.” as Daniel Baldwin’s “journey across the world to fulfill a promise; a promise he made to his friend, (P.J.) Patrick Michael Raynor Jr. That promise was, should P.J. become two years sober, that they would run with the bulls together in Pamplona, Spain to celebrate P.J.’s sobriety. Tragically, that day never came, and after three years of sobriety, P.J. died of a surprise drug overdose. Haunted from the loss of P.J., Baldwin decides to get in shape and run with the bulls to honor the promise he made to his beloved friend. Along the way you see the emotional aftermath that drug addiction has on a family that tries to cope with the loss of their son, brother, nephew and friend.”

The film - the only one ever made in which all four Baldwin brothers appear together - also documents the actor’s own journey through recovery from addiction.

THE FESTIVAL
The festival, sponsored by Sacred Noise Society, Inc., was held July 23-25 and featured 42 films; a dinner theater play production of Phyllis Yes’s “Good Morning, Miss America” starring Baldwin, festival founder Katie O’Regan of Waukon, last year’s film festival special guest, actor Ed Asner, Asner’s daughter, Liza, and regional actors; a parade (referred to as “very classy” by an onsite Getty Images photographer); a live, on-site broadcast from Dr. Robi Ludwig, nationally known psychotherapist, award-winning reporter, and a regular on Nightline, CNN, Headline News and The Fox News Channel; an awards ceremony with filmmakers from across the country; and a live-via-zoom appearance by Alec Baldwin, who interviewed his brother about the making of “My Promise to P.J.”

TESTIMONY
“This opioid epidemic has been really, really bad in our country these past 10 years - and has really (hit a) crescendo during the pandemic,” Baldwin noted while speaking to parishioners at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. Referring to the addiction struggles of his friend, P.J., as well as to his own, he said, “(P.J.) had God in him; but he wasn’t able to draw on his relationship with the Lord. It was my personal relationship with Jesus Christ that actually delivered me and got me through this.”

CRISIS
At breakfast after Mass, Baldwin further described his mission as a recovering addict. “Some people who are ‘celebrities’ don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I’ve made it very publicly known that I want to help people. I’ve placed hundreds of people into recovery - in Iowa, in Minneapolis. La Crosse, WI has a very serious problem.”

Referring to the currently accepted model for addiction treatment - sometimes called the “28-day model” - Baldwin said that “less than three percent stay sober. It’s absolutely a model built on failure.”

Baldwin said most people don’t understand why the average insurance stay for addiction rehabilitation is 28 days; and he described how insurance companies have inherited that number. “It started in the U.S. Air Force,” he said. “It was based on how long enlisted men could be paid (in place) while in rehab - which was 28 days.”

Kerry Nenn, writing for National Addiction Centers, dates that insurance model to the 1970s - when the U.S. Air Force was, in fact, the first addiction program established in the United States. “Military personnel could be away from duty for no more than four weeks without being reassigned. The 28-day programs allowed men and women in the Air Force to get treatment and get back to their duties, avoiding reassignment,” Nenn writes. “Other programs began to follow suit and, eventually, insurance companies decided to use this standard, as well. Decades later, the practice continues.”

However, Baldwin said, more recent studies have revealed the fallacy of the 28-day model. “When a recovering addict is in a controlled environment for 90 days, the success rate is 15 percent; with six months, it’s 45 percent. But something happens between six months and one year - some kind of re-firing of synapses happens during months nine, 10, 11. At one year, 95 percent (of people in rehab programs) get multiple years of sobriety.”

WRAPPING UP THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL
“The magnitude of creative talent that dropped into our part of the world was amazing,” O’Regan said of this year’s festival. “We created an artistic film family last year and it grew this year. It will continue to grow,” she said. “We’re pretty cool in the tri-state region. Heart and hospitality are plentiful. Our filmmakers feel it and our townspeople glow with quiet pride when they hear it.”

Among those O’Regan called “the angels that dropped in that weekend” are “Pete from Snopac Foods and the Falck Foundation; Greg Wennes, our parade MC; Elsie’s in Caledonia, who catered our play at The Caledonia Municipal Auditorium; Betsy’s Bed and Breakfast and Caledonia Haulers. Special thanks to the talented Phyllis Yes, who flew in from Portland to see us do her play. And to Alec Baldwin, for dropping in via zoom at the Spring Grove Cinema to interview our guest of honor, Daniel Baldwin, live.”

A one-day version of the festival, featuring winning films from this year’s Spring Grove-Caledonia Film Festival Film is being planned for September 25, in Sheboygan, WI, at The Stephanie H. Weill Center. O’Regan and Sacred Noise Society are currently in pre-production for a film version of “Good Morning Miss America,” to be shot in L.A., Portland and Caledonia, MN, starting in October. The 2022 Spring Grove-Caledonia Film Festival is scheduled for June 17, 18 and 19.

BALDWIN’S FINAL WORD
Asked what he would say to area young people about drugs, alcohol and addiction, Baldwin replied, “You know when you’re wrong. That little voice that you hear - that hesitation you feel when you’re about to do something and you’re not sure you should - that’s your conscience. For me, that conscience is controlled by my faith in God,” he said. “That voice is God speaking to you; and you should listen.”

ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Waukon resident Katie O’Regan, daughter of Francis and the late Leona O’Regan of Waukon, is a long-time actress, producer, singer and director, and the founder of Sacred Noise Society, Inc. She initiated the Spring Grove International Film Festival in Spring Grove, MN last year. For more information, visit sacrednoisesociety.org.