The son of Hollywood royalty is opening up about his long, difficult journey to sobriety.
Michael Douglas' oldest son, 40-year-old Cameron, is opening up about his history of drug addiction -- and rebuilding his life since.
The son of Hollywood royalty recently sat down with Diana Sawyer for the ABC News special, The Douglas Dynasty: Fame. Addiction. Finding Home., where he openly discussed his progression from marijuana to hard substances in his adolescence. He cited the discovery that his father had been cheating on his mother, Diandra Luker, as a pivotal moment in his formative years, leading to drugs.
"Eight years into the marriage, mom learned that dad was having a fling," Cameron says in the special's voice over, reading from his new memoir, Long Way Home. This prompted Diandra to sit her 7-year-old son down and explain the situation.
"She says to you, 'He's with somebody else, what are we going to do?'" Sawyer says to Cameron in the interview, also referencing the book. "That's a lot of responsibility at seven years old."
At the age of 13, Cameron was sent off to boarding school, where he first discovered marijuana. Soon, he moved on to cocaine, then crystal meth, liquid cocaine, and by his mid-twenties, was doing heroine. His family attempted to curb his behavior and Cameron spent eleven stints in rehab, but none led to him kicking his drug habit.
"I wasn't ready to change," he admits of that period in his life. When asked if he blames his parents, he quickly responded, "No…there are millions and millions of little kids that have it way worse off than that little kid did."
During the interview, his father Michael joins them and discusses his reaction to his son's downward spiral when it happened.
"You rack your brain. You know, you take it personally. You start blaming yourself," he said. "My career came before my family. My marriage was not great and so you do hide yourself in your work. I should have focused more on my family. But that's hard to say when you're in the midst of a career and, in your own mind, stepping out of your father's shadow, trying to create a life of your own."
Soon, Cameron was facing legal issues and drug offenses on top of his battle with addiction. At one point, Michael admits to his son in the special: "I did not think you were going to make it. You were either going to kill somebody or you were going to get killed."
In 2009, Cameron was arrested and booked for possession of half a pound of methamphetamine and served seven years in prison, including two in solitary confinement. But, since his release in 2016, Cameron has maintained his sobriety.
When asked by Sawyer if it's a "miracle" that he's still alive and well, he answered, "I like the sound of that word. It sounds good. We'll see if I can turn it into that. I think that remains to be seen."
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