Robert Jr. and Mary Cosby. Photo:
Mary Cosby/Instagram
“As a parent, you can feel like you failed, and there’s nothing that nobody can do,” Mary Cosby said on the Dec. 11 episode of ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’
Mary Cosby is shedding more light on her son’s ongoing struggle with addiction.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star continued to open up about Robert Jr.’s struggle with substance use in the Dec. 11 episode of the reality show. For the first time since he admitted he was using drugs, Mary confided in fellow housewife Angie Katsanevas about what she was going through.
“I had a rough day,” Mary said, to which Angie asked, “Yeah, what’s going on?”
“I feel like, you know when your kids start acting weird, when they’re not looking you in the eye, when they’re avoiding you, when they’re in their little, own little space,” Mary began. “I’m like, ‘Okay, sit down and tell me what you’re doing.’ And boy did he. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.”
She then dropped the bombshell: “He opened up to me and he told me things that I didn’t know. He just told me, point blank, he said, ‘Mom, I did drugs.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, Mom, I tried this, I tried that.’ And I was like, ‘You tried what?’ He’s like, ‘Heroin.’”
Mary Cosby and son Robert Jr.
Bravo
Earlier this season, cameras captured an intense scene between Mary and Robert Jr., where he revealed he had been taking Xanax, acid, Molly, cocaine and Oxycontin.
“He’s like, ‘Mom, I was doing Xanax and acid. And then I just started trying other stuff, and then I tried other stuff.’ And then he said, ‘At some point I felt like it almost became addiction.’ ‘Yeah, it is,’ I said. ‘Not almost.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s addiction, mom.’”
She then reflected on the heartbreaking moment he told her he didn’t want to live anymore, saying he felt like “a stain” in the world.
“I said, ‘I asked God for you. I asked for you to be here. I prayed to have you. How are you a stain?’” Mary said on the Dec. 11 episode. “I said, ‘Do you understand it took me four years to have you? I wanted to be pregnant so bad, and then to come here and get this far in life, and you told me you feel like a stain.’ I said, ‘What did I do? What did I miss?’”
“Was I not paying attention at some point that he went that far, to the point he didn’t even want to live?” she sobbed. “And where did I not secure him that he knows his worth and he knows how much he means to me? What happened? I mean, if I don’t blame myself, whose fault is it? I feel I’m responsible.”
Growing up, Mary shared that she and her siblings never felt connected to their mother, so she always wanted to be close to Robert Jr. so she could help him with whatever he was going through.
“Mary, but that could happen to anyone,” Angie said.
“Yeah, but it happened to me, Angie,” Mary replied.
Angie Katsanevas (left) and Mary Cosby on ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’.
Natalie Cass/Bravo via Getty
“Mary, you can never put that on yourself, though, because addiction is real,” said Angie, who previously revealed that her mother was an alcoholic. “It’s a disease. And I had to tell myself that with my mother. It helps with forgiveness and also understanding where they’re coming from. It’s not the parenting. You did everything right along the way.”
Mary grew more upset in her confessional, explaining that she doesn’t have family to lean on during these hard times.
“It’s hard. It’s really hard,” she said. “Just as a parent, you can feel like you failed, and there’s nothing that nobody can do. I don’t have help, I don’t have a mom, I don’t have a grandma, I don’t have nobody I can call and say, ‘Help me. My son is going through this. Help me. What can I do?’”
She continued: “But it’s my responsibility to make sure if he comes to me and if he says he wants help, it’s my responsibility to make sure he gets it. And whatever I have to do to do it, I’m gonna do it.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” Angie said as she and Mary made a “pink promise” that their conversation stayed between them.
Mary has since shared that Robert Jr. went to a drug rehabilitation program and “is doing so good.”
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
