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Cameron Douglas opens up about drug addiction that caused him to inject drugs into ribcage and neck

He says it's 'kind of a miracle' he's alive

Clémence Michallon
New York
Tuesday 22 October 2019 20:12 BST
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Cameron Douglas opens up about drug addiction

Cameron Douglas says his severe drug addiction once caused him to inject drugs in his rib cage and neck.

The son of Hollywood legend Michael Douglas (and grandson of Kirk Douglas) opens up about his addiction in a new memoir titled Long Way Home.

In the book, Douglas, now 40, describes how his drug use threatened to end his life and resulted in him serving seven years in prison.

He spoke with Diane Sawyer during an interview that aired on Tuesday on Good Morning America, telling the journalist it’s “kind of a miracle” he’s still alive.

When he was using injectable drugs, Douglas’s veins started collapsing, at which he said he started finding blood vessels in his rib cage and neck.

“You shot [liquid] cocaine into your neck?” Sawyer asked him.

Cameron nodded before replying: “Yes.”

The actor, who played alongside his father and grandfather in the 2003 film It Runs in the Family after agreeing to go to rehab, told Sawyer about his drug use: “I thought that I was fundamentally not put together properly, and that since that was the case, I was just going to take it as far as I could take it and come what may.”

Michael Douglas, who also spoke to GMA, told Sawyer that as a parent “you start blaming yourself” when your child develops a drug addiction.

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“My career came before my family. My marriage was not great. And so you do hide yourself in your work,” he said.

“I should have focused more on my family but that’s hard to say when you’re in the midst of a career, when you are in your own mind stepping out of your father’s shadow and trying to create a life for your own.”

Long Way Home is out now.

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