The Hollywood kid problem. I have often thought that children of famous people are like marriage or communism; better in theory than practice. I think my favorite part of the Cameron Douglas case is his numerous quotes about how he lives to entertain and make people smile. By that logic, selling Crystal meth out of the Gansevoort hotel fulfilled his dream. I am sure that made many people happy, at least for their night of clubbing in the meatpacking district.
The Douglas family had been plagued by addictive disease. Eric the much lesser known brother of Michael died after years of smoking crack. I don’t know the man but I’ll take a wild guess and say Michael Douglas is no stranger to booze, who knows. In other words, Cameron comes by it honestly. His rich and powerful family pleaded with the judge to cut Cameron a break, I guess the judge listened because he got five years for a “10 year minimum sentence”. That makes no sense at all. If the minimum sentence is 10 years how did he get 5? The Judge scolded Cameron’s parents, which they may or may not deserve.
So many issues jump out at me from this. Is he a Hollywood brat, the product of poor parenting, a narcissistic culture? Yes, I am quite sure he is a less than pleasant human. Is he a criminal? I guess, he did break the law. Can he be rehabilitated? It doesn’t seem likely. He is 31 years old and has been this way for a very long time. It is possible that spending 5 years in jail will give him the motivation to create sustainable change but it won’t teach him any lessons. More than likely, he will manipulate his parents and blame them for the way he turned out. They will cave in to their guilt and provide him with some stupid life where he is invested in blame and scapegoating, which, by the way, will NEVER support a person in recovery.
This is a very difficult problem. Does he deserve a prison term? He might. Let’s not pull any punches. My general rule of thumb is to side with the kid, dog, or addict but often addicts not only deserve the mess they create, it may in fact be the best way to help them. Certainly, if they are going to get better, they need to take responsibility for their actions, and be held accountable.
Who knows, maybe Cameron Douglas will speak when he has five years sober and begin it by saying “my bottom was when I was sentenced to prison”.
Core Company NYC 