All in the Family: Famous Families Plagued by Addiction
Bobbi Kristina faces uncertain future after Bobby Brown's arrest.
March 28, 2012 — -- intro: Research has shown that substance abuse runs in the family. Exhibit A: Hollywood.
Bobby Brown, the ex-husband of the late Whitney Houston, was arrested for driving under the influence on Monday. His lawyer said Monday that while Brown "has not been convicted of anything associated with this incident," he is "taking this matter seriously and an investigation is underway."
Brown has been convincted of DUI and charged with drug related offenses before, and in a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston memorably detailed the cocaine and marijuana she and Brown did together. Cocaine was also linked to Houston's sudden death in February.
Whether their penchant for substance abuse will plague their daughter, Bobbi Kristina, remains to be seen. That's been the case for five other famous children of addicts:
quicklist: 1title: Lindsay Lohan and Michael Lohantext: Lindsay Lohan's struggles with drugs and alcohol have been front page tabloid fodder since 2007. (To recap: Two DUIs, one charge for cocaine possession.) In that regard, she's her father's daughter. Michael Lohan began using cocaine at 20 and started drinking shortly after that. In 2005, after brawling with his brother-in-law at a first communion party and driving away from the scene drunk, he was sentenced to prison. After getting out in 2007, he checked into a Christian-based rehab center in his native Long Island.
Through his daughter's multiple rehab stints and relapses, he's urged her daughter to do the same. She's due to finally put her 2007 havoc behind her this week, at what could be her final probation hearing.media: 16012000
quicklist: 2title: Tatum O'Neal and Ryan O'Nealtext: Tatum O'Neal described how her drug dependence stemmed from her father, Ryan O'Neal, in her 2004 autobiography "A Paper Life." She writes about taking sips of her mother's beer as a 5-year-old, throwing up, passing out, and waking up on the bathroom floor. She describes her father telling her that marijuana is an herb, like parsley.
It led to O'Neal's heroin addiction and a falling out with her father. Outside of his influence, her problems persisted: In June 2008, she was arrested for buying crack cocaine; the same year, her father and his son with the late Farrah Fawcett, Redmond O'Neal, were arrested for possession of methamphetamines.
O'Neal and her father tried to make ammends for a 2011 OWN special, "The O'Neals: Ryan and Tatum."
"I sort of took a journey with my dad with this show to see what would happen. It didn't necessarily -- make us together," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" in June. "It didn't necessarily push us to this happy ending."media: 16012044
quicklist: 3title: Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheentext: For Martin Sheen, watching his son's 2011 downward spiral -- getting kicked off "Two and a Half Men," bragging about "banging seven-gram rocks" of cocaine -- was a reminder of his alcohol addiction during his early days of fame. The elder Sheen has been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous since the 1980s. In April, he told the BBC that the program "has been a lifeline." Though Charlie Sheen told ABC News that he cured his addiction problems "with my mind," his father compared the former "Two and a Half Men" star's problems to a terminal illness.
"So, if he had cancer, how would we deal with him?" he said. "Well, he has another disease and it is equally as dangerous as cancer. And so we lift him up and we pray for him and be present to him. And we try to meet with him as much as we can. But he is an adult and he needs a lot of help on a lot of different levels."
Charlie Sheen also fathered two sons with fellow addict Brooke Mueller in 2008.media: 16012116
