[cheers and applause] ins elpingessexpected. to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. this is "nightline." tonight, fame running in the family. drugs running through his veins. >> shot cocaine into your neck? >> yes. an diane sawyerinteie the o dolaas coming clean.haurd you around? >> confronting demons, nearly tearing his family apart. >> it was just tough to see, you know, you go down that road. >> this special edition of

"nightline," cameron doug losla the interview, when we come like back. r back. i back. gh back. right back. it's game day live here a fan favorite venue ever since they got gig speed internet. xfinity gives them the ultimate home field advantage, it's their twelfth man, protector-

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we'll see if i can turn it into but only kerrygold can take you there. that. that remains to be seen. to ireland's lush, green pastures. >> this is a story of a family where grass-fed cows produce rich, creamy milk part of the ruling class of hollywood. for decades nothing out of for the most delicious taste imaginable. reach. that's no ordinary cheese. the most beautifeaifs om no. it's kerrygold. kerrygold. the taste that takes you there. to the 247 acres on the cliffs aaddiction. how juuline hooked kids and ignited an of mallorca spain and all fathe grandfather as giants projected public health crisis." other news outlets report- on screens and bill- boards. you w juul took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. markets douglas? how do you live in e-cigarettes with kid friendly flavors and uses michael douglas's shadow? nicotine to addict them. 5 million kids use >> a child of that family is e-cigarettes. juul is "following big tobacco's standing in the hall getting ready to tell the story of how playbook." and now, juul is pushing prop c to far he traveled before he could overturn e-cigarette protections. vote no on juul. see his way back home. three years ago, cameron douglas was released from prison. no on big tobacco. no on prop c. >> i hate to keep a

beautiful woman waiting. >> now 40, he was confined seven years behind bars, including maximum security and was confined seven years behind bars including in maximum security and nearly two years in solitary confinement. >> do i have this right? when you were 13 you were smoking pot. when you were 15 you were snorting cocaine. when you were 17 you had sampled crystal meth, 19 liquid cocaine, 26 heroin? how close were you to dying? >> probably pretty close. >> as cameron douglas talks, it's hard not to be distracted. look at the faces of the three generations, that dynasty of douglas men. his grandfather not only played thncle spartacus.il including te the family signature a kind of tough glamor. >> greed for lack of a better word is good. >> his father, a powerhouse producer. hit making actor.

>> you said, "i wanted to impress him. i wanted him to be my friend. i revered him." >> goodnight, cameron, i love you! >> yeah. >> his new book is called "long way home." he paints a portrait of his childhood looking out at adults with intoxicating substances, the pulse of ambition and flirtation and very few rules. so when in the life of a happy child does something begin to go wrong. his father's career has exploded. long stretches away from home and everyone had read those rumors. >> eight years into the marriage, mom learned that dad was having a fling with.

>> he says when he is seven years old, his mother, diandra, tells him about her anguish. >> she says to you, "he's with somebody else. what are we going to do?" it's a lotta responsibility at seven years old. >> he's 13 years-old when he is sent off to boarding school and writes of his home sickness and about how dad's racy movies are getting him bullied. >> "i'm starting to catch some more flack from basic instinct." >> yeah. >> at boarding school he writes, he tried his first marijuana with another student >> i think just trying to-- to test myself on a regular basis. >> he gets kicked out of boarding schools, comes back home where he joins up with a menacing group of kids who call themselves the sewer rats. >> i usually had a buck-knife or switchblade on me. >> the drugs there are cocaine, crystal meth. >> his parents are alarmed. there are wilderness camps. he goes to juvenile facilities. even hazelton rehab.

>> --we count-- you will be in and out and of rehabs 11 times before you're in your mid-20s. why did nothing work? >> because i wasn't ready to change. >> do you blame your parents? >> no-- >> is there some, an ounce of blame? >> there are millions and millions of-- of little kids that have it way worse off than that little kid did. >> a father comes to join us to talk about that awful dance, of drugs, lies, broken promises, hope and despair. >> do you look back and say, "the one thing i think maybe i could have tried was--?" >> you know, i-- i'm just, you know, laughing because you-- you rack your brain and- >> you take it personally in the

beginning. you-- you start blaming yourself. >> that's your choice, honey, that has nothing to do with me. my career came before my family- >> what's on your mind, kemosabe? >> my marriage was not great, and so you do hide yourself-- in your work. i should have-- you know, focused more on my family, but that's-- that's-- that's hard to say when you're in the midst of a career, but you are-- you're in your own mind stepping out of your father's shadow, trying to create a life for-- for your own. >> in a family rescue mission, grandfather and father invite cameron who has a gift for acting to co-star in a movie with them - as long as he goes to rehab first. the movie is called "it runs in the family." >> look at that thing! you knew you were good in it? >> yes. yeah. >> hey everybody! >> he even got to play scenes with one of his favorite people on earth his actual grandmother and what about that young

beautiful mother? she is still very much a part of his life. divorced from his dad, but moving on with young children from another relationship and his dad marries catherine zeta-jones. they have two young children of their own and she warmly reaches out to cameron to be with them though sometimes he just doesn't show. >> she's always been a big supporter of me and-- and have been extremely loving and inclusive-- even in the midst of-- of all my craziness, >> so look again at his double life, smiling with his family and retreating where he is playing dice with death. a friend has shown him a new way to use cocaine - inject it as a liquid into his veins. >> your blood brings it up into your tongue, and you can taste it. people call it a bell ringer, because you literally hear bells ringing in your head.

he is using two to three times an hour. the needles scar his veins, they're collapsing, first in his arms, then in his legs. >> at one point you do your ribcage. >> my ribcage, my neck-- >> you shot cocaine into your neck? >> yes. seizures injection pushing him closer to overdose and he's so paranoid from the cocaine that sometimes he holes up in his closet for hn the famou we watch looking glamorous, thinking he must be living a trouble-free life, but in reality, he's despairing for his child. just like so many other parents across the country tonight. >> trying to figure out what to do what to do what to do. >> it's like having jekyll and hyde live in your house. >> trying to save his life. never seen him as bad as he is. >> i don't know what else to do and he's missing in action right now. >> he has made a decision. he manages to reach his son on the phone to say, "i love you.

you're my son. i think you're going to die." >> either gonna kill somebody or you were gonna get killed. we had-- had-we've-- had-- reached a point where i thought i was gonna lose him, based on everything-- i'd seen and-- was not willing to emotionally commit any more. >> and you said, don't you love me anymore, dad? >> those words were heartbreaking to me. >> at what point do you protect yourself or your other-- loved ones around you before you're getting-- get dragged into this and it falls apart. >> it destroys you. it just destroys you. >> police find heroin in his car and arrest him, but he manages to get off with a sentence to rehab classes. >> you had available money. you were not gonna starve. you were not gonna be out on the

street. >> right. >> so as his dad limits the money cameron says he had to do something to get the drugs his body craved. in the past he's experimented with robbery, putting on a mask. a drug fueled raid on a liquor store. then a motel where an elderly woman is behind the desk, and he takes her twenty dollars. >> the lowest point. >> and now he's going to target drug dealers, and he brings a weapon. >> how close did you come to killing someone? >> i don't know. i don't know. i know i couldn't, but i don't know about-- >> but you had a glock at one point. >> the-- in the headspace that i was in during these times in my life, it was definitely a possibility, but thank god, it never-- it never happened. >> and at this time he is scrambling to learn a new trade; trafficking drugs across the country. he packages crystal meth as bath salts in gift baskets.

his communications are in code, his equipment encrypted. a knock on the door at the hotel in new york city. >> i had asked my girlfriend if it looked like there were agents or detectives. and she said, "no," and i said, "you sure?" she said, "100%," and i opened the door to a central casting dea agent. >> here he is, special agent justin meadows. at that time, a dea agent of seven years. >> that was the moment that i knew it was-- it was over, you know? and they-- they actually grabbed me by-- my shirt and my neck and pulled me out into the-- the hallway. he asks to make his call to his father. who answers so happy to hear his son's voice, cameron freezes. >> i said-- "not good," but that was about as far as i got. >> i said, "i'll speak to 'i'm." >> i believe he was just in a

state of shock. >> did you think to yourself, "i've just told michael douglas that his son has been arrested"? >> the truth is, is that it didn't matter. i was speaking to a father at that point, i mean, there's no words that can describe the shame, the embarrassment-- that i felt -- >> next, what happens to the hollywood kid during 7 years in prison . >> to keep from going insane the mind has to figure out how to adapt... we call it the mother standard of care. it's how we bring real hope to our cancer patients- like viola. when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her team at ctca created a personalized care plan that treated her cancer and strengthened her spirit. so viola could focus on her future. their future. this is how we inspire hope. this is how we heal. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. this is charlie not coughing because he took delsym 12-hour.

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remembers the 10 minute drive from his old world to the radically new one. his name is now beneath his prison number, though his lawyers did manage to get him a sentence of only five years and he starts out in minimum security, quickly learning prisoners can get almost anything. >> you write "steaks, lobster, vodka, prostitutes, heroin, good heroin." >> you know, drugs-- and alcohol are prevalent in every prison. s flagrantly using heroin -- a furious judge hauls him back in court. my sentence was just doubled from five to ten years. overwhelmed, i pass out. >> his temper and immature recklessness lands him in solitary confinement over and over again. >> you're in that little cement box 24 hours a day, seven days a week. he writes that for the first time he created a discipline, a

out, and meditating and >> and something else. for the first time since he was 13 years old, cameron douglas has long stretches without drugs. was it prison that turned you around? >> it was getting away from addiction and allowing me to begin to see things-- more clearly and then, you know, the constant love and support of my family-- never giving up on me. >> there will be another lesson about how fragile life can be, >> his powerful father has sh that he has stage 4 throat cancer. >> so, i got cancer, found o about it three weeks ago. >> when michael douglas finishes the brutal chemotherapy, he comes to see his boy.

>> and i've-- i've never seen-- somebody's body change so drastically. i mean, it's a real-- it's a real fight for your life and >> there will be one more visitor. the founder of that dynasty of tough douglas men. 93-year-old kirk douglas travels 3,000 miles to see his grandson. >> the grandfather who has made one plea to his grandson. >> do you remember the sentence you quote him saying? do-- >> "do-- do what you have to do. and-- and make it home." >> find your way home. june 13, 2016. >> yeah, yeah. >> it's the day after seven years cameron douglas walks out of prison. >> i am the master of my fate: i am the captain of my soul. >> words he would need for the next part of his life.

>> a new life with a new baby daughter lua - almost two, and lua's mother is vivian -- a brazilian former model. they first met a long time ago in his hard partying past. she decided to write him a letter in prison. >> he-- he was, like, slowly creating such a strong bond and also i started getting to know him in a whole different light. >> she's kind of my rock, three years after his release -- he is taking acting classes and some movie parts. he is also still on probation. he has regular therapy, he says, and people to confide in. volunteering at a homeless shelter. he says he has a regular drug test and they show no heroin, no cocaine for five years. >> going back to a life of drug addiction is repulsive to me. >> but still, do you worry about it? >> it's always in my mind,

if i know one thing about addiction, i know how crafty and sneaky it is, you know? and as soon as you lose sight of that, i think you're in major danger. after all those years of constant worry. how does michael douglas feel now? >> i think he's been through the system. he's an ex-convict now. >> you know, listen, all you can do is hope. >> hope - still a word on cameron's mind. i wondered if he had a final question for his dad. >> i guess i want to know if you, if you truly gave up, if you truly thought that i wasn't going to make it out or you hell onto some hope that i was going to be able to pull through. >> oh, i-- i mean hope? yes. hope, yes. but-- if you're, you know,

asking me, yeah, we always had hope, but no, i did not think you were-- i did not think you were going to make it. >> the past that can be redeemed by the possible. >> imagine five years from now what's the scene you dream? >> well, we'll all be on-- on a cruise together and-- cameron probably is havin' another child. generations are going on. >> send me a postcard, you two. >> we will. yeah. >> cameron's book "long way home" is out now. can you catch the full special on abc news.com. we'll be right back with a final note. it stronger. faster. sma. because to be the best, is to never ever stop making it better.

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