Michael Douglas felt hopeless as he watched son Cameron's drug addiction spiral out of control: 'I thought I was going to lose him'
Michael Douglas opened up about his son Cameron's struggles with drug addiction saying that, at a point, he thought he was going to lose his firstborn.
In an exclusive interview with People magazine, which featured the father-son duo on their cover this week, Cameron recalled how he started drinking and smoking pot during his teenage years and was soon abusing drugs like cocaine and heroin. It did not take long for his debilitating habit to become an addiction and he was soon carrying a gun and dealing methamphetamines in order to earn money to buy drugs.
“I hated the wreckage I saw in my life because of drugs, but I just couldn’t stop,” Cameron, 40, said.
Cameron is the first child of Michael Douglas, 75, with his ex-wife Diandra, 63, who is a former model and producer.
Meanwhile, all Cameron's parents could do was to helplessly watch their son's life spiral out of control. Although his mother tried staging an intervention regarding his drug addiction, her efforts did not pan out the way she wanted to.
The 'Disclosure' actor recalled how at one point he seriously believed that he was going to lose his son due to the latter's worsening addiction. “There were moments when hope dwindled and then it’s just a train out of the station. Life became a series of crises. I thought I was going to lose him," he said.
There were days when Cameron would regularly snort cocaine in spite of being subjected to drug-induced seizures.
He was forced to forego his habit after a 2009 DEA sting operation landed him in prison, where he spent eight years for conspiracy to distribute meth and cocaine and drug possession.
In 2016, he emerged from jail a transformed person.
“It’s the sneaky power, the stranglehold that addiction has when you’re in the throes of it,” he said. “When you get that far down the rabbit hole, there are a couple options: there’s prison and then there’s death.”
Today, Cameron is a father to his 22-month-old daughter, Lua, whom he is raising with longtime girlfriend Viviane Thiebes, 41, a yoga instructor.
