Cameron Douglas opened up about his battle with drug addiction Wednesday, highlighting his path to sobriety and describing how he turned his life around.
"I started as a young teenager," Douglas told "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "I felt lonely, uncomfortable in my own skin and it [drugs] sort of soothed that for me and it allowed a connection to a peer group."
"After years and years of leaning on that and using the addiction as a crutch, it starts to consume you and then you can't tell yourself apart from it," Douglas explained.
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As the son and grandson of actors Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas, Cameron has said he felt pressure in trying to live up to his family's legacy.
For years, he struggled with addictions to cocaine and heroin. He also sold crystal meth and lived a life of destruction that eventually led to prison.
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After multiple arrests for drug possession, Douglas' most serious run-in with the law came in 2009, when he was arrested during a sting at the Gansevoort Hotel in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty to heroin possession and conspiracy to distribute drugs and was sentenced to five years — only to be slapped, in 2011, with an additional 4.5-year sentence for possessing items that tested positive for cocaine and heroin, which he scored from fellow inmates. (Douglas was granted early release in 2016 and transferred to a halfway house).
It was during his final stint in jail that Douglas made the decision to turn his life around, he explained.
"I believe the moment where I started to change direction was when I was given my second sentence," he said. "I was in solitary confinement and I felt something cracking or breaking inside of me."
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"At that point, I knew I had two paths left open to me, and one path I probably would not have made it back from."
"The other one gave me some purpose ... to put myself in the best possible position once I was released from prison to make a life for myself," he added.
Asked how his life has changed since going clean, Douglas said he now has "purpose" as he pursues a career in acting, and pointed to his "great relationship with his family," which he details in his new memoir "Long Way Home."
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"Life is amazing not being addicted to drugs," he said. "Life now has purpose ... I have a beautiful daughter, lovely girlfriend and a great relationship with my family," he said.
Offering advice to parents of teens struggling with addiction, Douglas stressed the importance of "doing everything in your power to show how much you love them" and encouraged seeking professional help.
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"One thing that would've been helpful for me was if I would've taken advantage of therapy," he said. "Therapy would be the first move ... and aside from that you do everything in your power to let them know how much you love them and care about them."
"But then," Douglas added, "it reaches a point where you have to sort of let go and pray to God that they land on their own two feet."