LI's Daniel Baldwin looking to open rehab center

Actor Daniel Baldwin, who has experienced highly public struggles with addiction, says he wants to open a drug-rehabilitation facility in Central New York, where the Massapequa native now lives.

"We're planning on opening something in the name of the Baldwin family somewhere here in Oswego or Onondaga county," Baldwin, 58, told Syracuse.com Wednesday, adding that his actor brothers Alec, Billy and Stephen as well as their mother, Carol Baldwin, support the idea. "I'm doing the legwork," said Baldwin, who some years ago moved to the town of Cleveland, in Oswego County, to be near his mother and to host a sports show on ESPN Radio Syracuse.

The impetus for the plan was “frustration," Baldwin explained, saying numerous families had approached him saying  there were no nearby facilities for those seeking help. He told the website he is searching for a property suitable for a 100-bed facility and that he would partner with Soba, a company that has rehab facilities in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Malibu, California.

Neither of his actor siblings nor their mother has commented publicly on the proposed center.

Baldwin in 2007 told ABC's "Primetime" that he had begun using crack cocaine soon after landing a cast role on the sitcom "Sydney" in 1989, and "was in rehab six months later." High-profile arrests began in 1998 following an overdose episode at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. In 2005, on VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club," he suffered a relapse and admitted a painkiller dependency. He later appeared on the network's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew."

The recovering addict has since become an advocate for drug awareness, most recently speaking about the opioid crisis Wednesday at the G. Ray Bodley High School in Fulton, New York.

On Thursday he tweeted, "The LORD is so good to me. HE gives me the strength to help others.  I am so excited for another day to serve HIM."