Michael Douglas tried to kidnap his son Cameron to take him to rehab after he started injecting cocaine in neck
Cameron Douglas, son of legendary actor Michael Douglas, struggled with addiction since he was 13 years old.
The actor recently shared some heartbreaking moments from his past and said that, during the height of his addiction, he played a game of "chicken" with himself and even shot cocaine into his rib cage and neck.
While promoting his memoir 'Long Way Home', the actor told Diane Sawyer at ABC News that he had been "very close to dying" after starting to smoke marijuana at 13, doing coke at 15, and moving on to sampling methamphetamine by 17. By the time he was 19, he was doing liquid cocaine and had moved on to heroin by 26. "I thought that I was not put together properly and, since that was the case, I was just going to take it as far as I could take it," he said.
It was as though it was the one thing he could count on and he "didn't have the courage to move forward without it."
His drug problems got so bad that his father offered to let him star in the 2003 comedy-drama 'It Runs in the Family' if he got clean. But things did not improve. The duo's relationship became so bad that, at one point, he tried to get Cameron kidnapped so he could get him to rehab.
However, Cameron got aggressive and the plan was called off.
During the interview, Michael told Cameron that he feared that he would either hurt himself or someone else. "You were either going to kill somebody or you were going to kill yourself. We reached a point where I was going to lose him, based on everything I'd seen, and I was not willing to emotionally commit anymore," he said, adding "At what point do you protect yourself or other loved ones around you before you get dragged in and it falls apart?"
Cameron's drug troubles landed him in prison in 2009. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and ended up spending close to two years in solitary confinement.
He was released in 2016 and is currently clean. He lives with his partner Viviane Thibes and the couple has a child named Lua Izzy Douglas.