Michael Douglas Remembers Thinking He Was Going to Lose Son Cameron to Drugs: ‘Hope Dwindled’

No parent wants to lose their kid to drugs and when Michael Douglas‘ 40-year-old son, Cameron Douglas, started to both sell and abuse them in his younger years, his dad didn’t know what to do.

“There were moments when hope dwindled … and then it’s just a train out of the station,” Michael, 75, recently recalled about the whole ordeal to People. “Life became a series of crises. I thought I was going to lose him.”

Cameron was quickly going down a road that he didn’t understand and, the more he used drugs, the more he saw himself throwing away his life.

“I hated the wreckage I saw in my life because of drugs, but I just couldn’t stop,” he admitted. “It’s the sneaky power, the stranglehold that addiction has when you’re in the throes of it.”

It wasn’t until Cameron got booked by the DEA for conspiracy to distribute drugs that he decided to make a change in his life. “When you get that far down the rabbit hole, there are a couple options: There’s prison and then there’s death,” he said.

Luckily for Cameron, it wasn’t the latter — but he did end up spending eight years in prison after the DEA caught him in 2009. However, after he served his time, Cameron decided to change his ways. In 2016, he married the love of his life, Viviane Thibes, and now they are currently raising their 1-year-old daughter, Lua, together.

In his upcoming memoir, Long Way Home, Cameron details his long journey to sobriety and reveals why he started to use drugs. “I was maybe trying to make sense of things … and trying to figure out where I fit in,” he said. “I started drifting towards kids who were smoking, drinking and [other] things and I tied that in with friendship … and then it just kept going from there.”

With time, Cameron learned more about himself and understood why he liked the feeling of being high. “For a long time I quite honestly thought I just wasn’t put together properly, that I didn’t have the characteristics necessary for real success in life,” he said, but that wasn’t the case. “I know now that was the addiction talking.”

We’re so glad that Cameron is through with that part of his life!