Actor Michael Douglas is sharing painful memories of his son's struggle with addiction. In an interview with AARP, which was shared by Entertainment Tonight, he admitted it reached the point where he had to show tough love as a parent and it wasn’t easy.
"My older son, Cameron, was a drug addict and ended up serving seven-and-a-half years in federal prison," he recalled. "That was hard, having to protect myself and my family and tell my older son that if you feel like I'm pulling away from you, I am, because I'm afraid you're either going to kill yourself or kill somebody else. That experience with Cameron I don't wish on anybody."
Douglas added that he had to be hard on Cameron to save his life.
"There is a toughness that's required," he said. "But when you reach that point, you're doing it for your child."
Cameron was released from prison in 2016 after nearly a decade behind bars. He was sentenced in 2010, but 4.5 years were added on after he confessed to smuggling drugs into prison, according to USA Today. He spent nearly two years in solitary confinement before his release. He then entered a halfway house until 2017.
In a 2019 interview with ABC's "Nightline," the Academy Award-winning actor confessed he did not think Cameron would survive his addiction.
"We had reached a point where I thought I was going to lose him, based on everything I'd seen," he said. "And (I) was not willing to emotionally commit anymore. At what point do you protect yourself or your other loved ones around you before you get dragged into this and it falls apart? It destroys you."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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