In this KARAMO episode, host Karamo sits down with Kelly, a mother who spent years battling substance addiction, and her two adult sons, Donovan (20) and Eric (15). Kelly recounts her descent into drug use beginning at age 14, multiple arrests, and a year in which she was jailed 13 times before achieving sobriety, now in her 11th year. She describes how her addiction forced her older son Donovan to become a parent‑figure, leading to truancy, a fabricated car‑accident story to avoid Child Protective Services, and deep feelings of abandonment. Donovan shares memories of caring for his mother, missing school, and the emotional toll of lying. The younger son Eric recalls a comparatively better relationship with Kelly, noting jealousy and perceived preferential treatment. Throughout the conversation, Kelly expresses profound guilt, apologizes, and affirms her love, while the sons articulate lingering hurt, fear of abandonment, and the desire for healing. Karamo facilitates a therapeutic dialogue, encouraging acknowledgment, repeated affirmations (“I choose you”), and a public hug, aiming to model reconciliation for viewers dealing with addiction‑related family trauma.
Chapters
All right, friends, our guest was a mother of two, addicted and on the run. Everyone, please help me welcome Kelly to the show. Hi.
How are you doing today?
I'm good. How are you?
Can I have a hug?
Sure.
Nice to meet you. Thank you. Please take a seat. So tell me, how bad was your addiction?
My addiction was so bad that I should not be here. And today talking to you. I went to jail the last year before I got sober 13 times in 1 year. That's me. I was dead on the inside. I can look at my eyes and just see that there was no life behind that. I look at that picture and I smell jail.
And how long have you been sober?
I've been sober 10 years. I'm in my 11th year.
Congratulations. Good job.
Right?
It is possible. Yes, good job.
Please say I do.
So how did your addiction start?
I was 14 years old. I started smoking weed. I was blackout drinking every single weekend. I started to dabble in, you know, pills, Xanax, started pain pills, and it just progressed. Yeah, of course. I was the person that as long as I was not doing that or not doing this, that I was still okay. So I was justifying my disease, right? I remember looking at like faces of meth, right? And you see those posters and in my mind I wasn't there and I wasn't ever gonna do that. That's faces of meth. I mean that's—
And it's interesting about how with drugs you think I'm never gonna be like them. And then all of a sudden you are that person you said you'd never become. You came through on the other side. It sounds like you're still doing well. Why do you need my help?
I have two sons. My oldest son got dragged through the wringer in all of this. He was old enough to remember. He has yet to tell me that he's mad at me. He's yet to tell me that he's hurt. He is very protective of me, but in my addiction, Donovan was the parent. He had to be the parent.
Who was taking care of him?
No one.
No one was taking care of him? No.
Wow.
Okay.
It is devastating to think that my son was the one waking me up to ask me if he was going to school that day.
Yeah, I know with addiction, a lot of times there's a lot of shame. Shame leads to lying. Did you ever force Donovan to lie?
I did. When Donovan was about 8 years old, CPS had come into our life for truancy. He, you know, when you drink and party like I did, you can't get up and take your kid to school successfully. It doesn't happen. In my mind, it was okay. They had come to me and said, if he misses one more day, then he's gone. So that next day came around, he didn't make it to school, surprisingly. I made up a big story when I called and I said, you know, we got in this really bad car wreck. Donovan had to be seen. His arm is hurt. I got a knock on the door and it was his principal and his teacher. They wanted to check on Donovan. So I pulled my son into the bathroom and started wrapping his arm up. I was on my knees, eye to eye, and I will never ever forget this. And I said, you know, you have to lie. You have to tell them we were in this car wreck. You have to, if you don't, they're gonna take you from me and then we're gonna be split. So when he was taken from me, or when I gave him away, if I'm being honest, when he was taken, he, I think, lives with that. At 8 and 9 years old, as a parent, I should have been teaching integrity and honesty and the disease in me—
Didn't allow you to.
It's all about me.
Yeah. What's your relationship now with Donovan as adults? 'Cause he's how old?
20.
20.
We're still pretty strained. It's really weird because we are, we are so close, but yet so strained.
I would love if you don't mind stepping backstage and I'll bring Donovan out. Sure. Thank you for talking to me. I think it's important to have a conversation with Donovan alone to really get his side of the story. So everyone please, Help me welcome Donovan to the stage.
What's going on, man?
How you doing?
Good to meet you.
All right, Donovan, so I just talked to your mom and she told me that at 7, basically, you had to become the parent. What was that like for you?
I'm sorry, that picture y'all showed, that's what I remember. So it kind of like, it got you.
What did it bring you back to?
Taking care of her, taking care of myself. I never really looked at it as I didn't have anybody. I was just listening backstage. I never really looked at it. I never really looked at it as I didn't have anybody. Always had her.
Yeah.
And long as I had her to take care of her, she was okay-ish, I was good. I remember like feeding her. I remember feeding myself like Burger King and Pop-Tarts every day. For sure, that's what I had every day. And I remember not going to school ever. Like third grade year, I went to school like 60-some days out that whole year. Like if that. And I remember the school bus incident when she told me to lie about that. And I remember actually doing that. Still to this day, people talk about that and I still say I was in the wreck that day. Wow. So I'm used to it. I remember getting my little brother on Tuesdays and that was like the highlight of the week, getting him on Tuesdays and Saturdays. He used to think I was like the king of the world back then. Like I was the king of the world to him.
Of course.
Aw, that's so beautiful. Yeah.
What was your biggest fear as a child when it came to your mom?
Losing her.
Losing her?
Losing her and never seeing her again. It's actually a time where I actually went without seeing her for a long time and I didn't know if she was dead or not. Nobody did.
Have you ever talked to your mom about how you feel?
Sometimes, we don't really go too deep into it though.
Why don't you feel like you can go deep with her?
It's not that I don't feel like I can't, it's just I'm not, I don't really do this, like crying and stuff. And once I feel myself getting there, I'll like, Back up.
Shut it off. I understand.
It just feels weird. I don't want her to feel like I'm mad at her 'cause I'm not. Like she says she's never heard me. I'm not. Never have been.
How has that time period of your life affected you as an adult now?
I feel like I'm over like that relationship I used to have with my mom. I feel like I took it there with my girlfriend. Like I'm like, I always feel like someone's going to leave.
'Cause you were abandoned as a child essentially. And so that abandonment is still with you.
Yeah.
Yeah. Your little brother, his name is Eric, right? So what was Eric's relationship with your mom and how do you feel about him living with your mom?
His relationship with my mom, I would say, is better than what mine was at that age. Mm-hmm. He, even with all that going on, he was like, just wanted to see his mom and his brother. And I don't know if it was 'cause everything that was going on, but I was mean. Like I was mean to everybody that really wasn't my mom.
Of course.
Like I was mean. Yeah. So I was mean to him and now it was just, he still was so happy to come over on those Saturdays and Tuesdays. He was so happy. But on the days he was gone, it felt, you could feel him, he wasn't there. It was almost, that's when my mom was like normal-ish when he was there. 'Cause she, he was young, it was like 2-ish, 1 maybe. Like I don't wanna get the ages wrong, but.
In your mind, your mother became a better mother when your brother was around?
Yeah.
Makes sense because it's like, why didn't I get that version of you?
It's almost, yeah, it's almost like I've always had that kind of jealousy. I've always asked her like, why do you hug him? Like you holding his hand and you're— I don't even mean no harm by it. It's just maybe it's the— Sometimes I be thinking I'm playing, but maybe I'm not.
'Cause you know what's it when you're hurt, it comes outta you. There's some feelings there that you haven't processed. But I know your brother Eric is here and he's 15 and I would love to meet him and talk to him. Him as well, and I wanna bring him and your mom back out to join the conversation. So Eric and Kelly, can you come on out? Eric, good to meet you.
Good to meet you too.
How are you doing? I see you're emotional.
Yeah.
What's going on in your head?
'Cause I don't like remember everything. I actually don't remember a lot.
Yeah. And I didn't like know what was going on 'cause I felt like I was too young. Yeah. For you, Kelly, he said he's never talked about this with you so vulnerably. How does it make you feel to hear what he's saying now?
Shockingly, a little relieved.
And why relieved?
Because I know for me and my healing process through all this and the trauma that I've been through, talking about it has been of utmost importance in my life to be able to heal. What I haven't healed from is the trauma that I've caused them. I want them to know that nothing, especially Donovan, nothing was your fault. I wanted you then, I want you now, I want you always. You and your brother saved my life. You continue to save my life every single day. When I wanna give up at 10 years, because it doesn't matter how long you've been sober, there are times that it feels too heavy, you two are the reason that I haven't. So I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for being who you are and being here today to try to help other people through this.
You know, Kelly, one of the things that Donovan said that was interesting, he feels as if like your addiction caused him now to feel abandonment. What goes through your mind? What do you have to say to your son?
I wanna fix it.
Donovan, do you believe your mom when she says that it wasn't your fault, that she loved you?
Yeah, I've always known she loved me. I'm proud of her. And that picture, I haven't seen that picture in years.
Yeah.
And you can really see the difference.
Donovan, you also said that you feel sort of like your mom was a better mom for your brother Eric.
I've always felt it and I think she kind of known that. Like we always get into arguments. I always say, "You've done that for him," or, "Why do you love him more?" And you were sober from the time he started remembering. You were like just starting to get sober around the time he was the age I was when I remember everything. I just wish it would've been a little different. Maybe I would've seen it from his point of view, maybe.
Kelly, how do you show up for your son now?
I still parent him out of guilt because of everything that we went through when he was a child. Like, he doesn't wanna upset me, I don't wanna upset him. Let me again reiterate, like, we are super close.
I can see that.
We are so close that it's—
If I can be honest with you, I see a family full of love. But I also see a family, which I think most families of addiction go through, and I say this candidly from my own family, is that even though you love them, even though you're there, there's always this underlying issue that unless addressed, it's just going to fester. There's things right now with Eric I can even tell that's like, he's still emotional through all this, that one day these things are gonna pop up with you. And I don't think you're a bad mother. I wanna let you know. Right, thank you. 'Cause I see your love, but here's your opportunity to start that healing.
When Eric was around, it was easier. For one, I had to clean up. Because of the court. And I was fearful that they would come and I'd lose visitations with him, which I eventually did. But it was never your fault. I'm so grateful for you. And I'm so sorry for all of the hurt that I caused you. I know that you don't like talking about this 'cause you wanna protect me, but I'm comfortable enough with the things that I did to talk about them. I didn't even know why I was abandoning you. I didn't know why I wasn't taking you to school and doing what's best for you. I wanted to stop, I felt terrible, I couldn't stop.
The unfortunate part about addiction, the scars from addiction, is that you'll never be able to let it go. Your mother's living that right now. Even though she's been sober, it still always will pop up. But what you can do is understand it and acknowledge it more, and through acknowledging it and talking about it openly, it will start to heal. So Mom, can you start to remind him every single day, I choose you, I choose you, I choose you?
I will start right now. I am so sorry for what I did to you. I am so sorry for what I caused you. I'm so sorry that it has leaked into this vicious cycle of adulthood for you. I choose you more than you could imagine. You are a priority. You've always been a priority. You are important. You are important. And I really, really am proud of both of the men that you have become.
Can y'all give your mom a hug? Hold on, where you going? I'll tell you where you're going. Right here to subscribe and right here to watch more.
