NARRATOR: This program contains subject
matter and language that may be disturbing to some viewers.
Viewer discretion is advised.
[music playing]
My name is Robert.
I live in Lamar, South Carolina, and I'm 31-years-old.
I live with my wife Miranda and my two
children, Emily and Robert Jr.
We were put in a position where we really had it made,
but things are very different now.
I'm addicted to crack cocaine.
I bet I spent $100,000 last year on crack, coke, booze, pills.
Robert and I receive money from tenants and people
that are renting to own their property.
Nothing today.
When Robert first started having the problem,
we made an agreement that certain properties were going
to be his money for drugs and certain properties were going
to be my money for paying all of our bills and taxes
and taking care of our children.
Now, all of our money goes to drugs.
Every bit of it.
Being married to a drug addict is a very different thing
from being married to someone who
has any other kind of illness.
You spend the entire time not knowing what to do
or what's going to happen next.
So you sort of stumble through it.
My biggest fear for Rob is he's close to death.
It's obvious.
He's nothing but skin and bones.
His face is so sunk in, it looks like his eyeballs
are about to pop out.
MIRANDA: It's like there's not an ounce of fat
anywhere left on him.
I truly believe that he is going to die.
I don't even recognize him anymore as being
the same person that I married.
DOROTHY: Robert was a happy kid.
I loved him to death.
And we did a lot of good things together.
Rob's dad was a local farmer.
WENDY: Rob had a rough upbringing.
His parents weren't ever married.
They argued and fought all the time in front of him.
When he was like 11, I decided to leave his dad.
And you know, I had full custody of him and I took him with me.
GORDON: The reason Rob's mom and dad split was basically
Rob's mom started using drugs.
Rob's father didn't like anyone using drugs.
He just despised any kind of hard drugs.
She got clean for a while.
But it was only short periods--
a month, two months.
And as soon as things would get good,
then they would get bad again.
MIRANDA: Rob went back and forth between the two of them.
When he was with his mother, they
would stay with whatever man she was with at the time
to keep a roof over their head.
As time went on, Rob's mom's addiction got worse.
ROB: So I would be pulled from drug house to drug house
and seen a lot of things that I shouldn't have seen that even
grown people should know about.
His mom started giving him drugs or smoking crack with him
when he was 13 years old.
Yeah, everybody says I smoked crack with my son
when he was 12 years old.
That's a bunch of [bleep] bull [bleep]..
That's all I got to say.
The first time I tried crack, I don't remember exactly how I
felt. But I know that crack made me feel good and I wanted more.
And it came from my mom and a friend of hers.
You know, my life was a mess.
I was getting in trouble, breaking in houses.
I got caught with drugs at school,
selling drugs weed, crack.
I got expelled, suspended.
When Rob was 15, his dad sent him to military school
in Camden, South Carolina, trying to straighten him out,
basically try to get him off the drugs.
When I was in the Military Academy, I loved it.
I loved every day of it.
I didn't want to leave.
I wanted to stay.
GORDON: When Rob finished military school,
his dad was hoping it was all over.
That that was the solution.
And it seemed to be for a while.
[music playing]
ROB: I took my last paycheck and I bought some cocaine
and some weed with it.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to get started.
And I started selling.
And I did time for that.
I got caught with a lot of cocaine.
GORDON: Rob's dad was ashamed of him having to bail him out.
We live in a very small town.
Everybody knows your business.
At that point, he was ready to wash his hands of him.
ROB: I realized that if I didn't leave
here, that I was going to get pulled right back into it.
So my grandma gave me some money and I got on the bus
and I went to Virginia.
And when he finally went to Virginia
and got himself straight, you could tell when Ron would come
back home to visit that Rob was like a totally
different person again.
I met Robert while I was working in Norfolk, Virginia.
When Rob and I got together we fell
in love almost immediately.
He was working for a tree business
and we ended up starting our own tree business together.
ROB: In a short time, maybe less than a year,
we went from just a little pickup truck and a chainsaw
to a very big business.
It turned out to be a very successful business
in a very short amount of time.
Robert and I got married about a year after we started dating.
Things were really good between us.
We invited my father to come down and go fishing
with us on our honeymoon.
That was one of the best weekends I
think I've ever had in my life.
You know, I had my dad back finally.
Rebuilding the relationship with Rob was just like--
here went all the old wounds.
Rob's dad was proud of him.
ROB: When I lived in Virginia, that was
the best my life had ever been.
We had Emily, my daughter.
Then a year later, we had my son Junior.
And when we came here, everyone was very proud of him
for the way he had turned his life around.
GORDON: When Rob's dad was diagnosed with the cancer,
he was told he only had no more than six months to live.
When my dad got sick, I didn't ask any questions.
I shut the door on my business and I
came here to take care of him.
Rob ended up staying with his father
and he was there in the room when he passed.
ROB: And to have to watch him suffer through cancer--
you all got to give me a minute.
MIRANDA: The moment his father died, he became
a completely different person.
It was the day of the funeral.
I couldn't get to the crack man fast enough.
Then, I started using non-stop.
It went completely out of control so quickly.
ROB: I sold off probably about $20,000 worth of tree
trimming equipment, ropes, climbing
gear to support my habit.
MIRANDA: He would leave and not come home for days at a time.
He would lie to me about where money went.
GORDON: Rob's dad, he acquired quite a large amount of
property before he passed away.
ROB: What he left me as far as paper money goes,
I've blown it.
I've sold some of the property as well.
Not all of it.
Not yet.
We sold one piece of property and blew it on drugs.
We were collecting about $7,500 a month
in rent on our properties.
There's a lot of money in our small town.
I'm probably going to keep on selling properties
until I reach my bottom.
If he does not get under control immediately,
we could lose everything in the next six months.
After I check my balance, I have to throw my receipt away so
that he doesn't know how much money is in the bank
because it does not matter if there's $0.05 or $5,000,
he has to have all of it.
WENDY: When Rob's run out of money,
he aggravates Miranda constantly.
And I've told her over and over all
you're doing is enabling him to go out there and do the drugs.
The verdict is that is going to be it.
ROB: Normally, I start my day off with about $60.
But, you know, she just don't have it today.
So, you take whatever you can get.
It will hold me over at least until I
can work something else out.
You know that I've loved you since the moment I met you.
You're the most loving man and you always made
me feel safe and taken care of.
You've always made me laugh and made even
the boring times more bearable.
And before you got sick, you were an amazing father
to our children.
If you accept this opportunity and see it through to the end,
I will wait for you and support you every step of the way.
But if you turn this down or leave before they say
you're ready, I have no choice but to go
through with the divorce.
Please do this.
Let's go.
OK.
ROB: I've been sober now for 51 days.
The differences in my life today compared to 50, 60 days ago
is just I'm happy, I'm healthy spiritually,
mentally, emotionally.
I'm just-- I'm a joyful person now.
I'm not some raging lunatic trying to get dope.
Hey, baby.
Love you.
MIRANDA: My first thought when I saw
Rob was how healthy he looked and how he didn't
look like he was dying anymore.
I'm very pleased.
[music playing]