Zak opens up

Robin Williams' Son Zak's Addiction Battle Mirrored His Dads

Zak Williams joined Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey's series The Me You Can't See and opened up about his addiction struggle that was passed down from his famous dad Robin Williams.

Zak Williams has come a long way. He suffered through the same all-consuming addiction that his father Robin Williams did and has learned so much from his and his father's experience.

Robin Williams and Zak Williams Addiction Battle

Zak Williams was featured on Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey's new series The Me You Can't See opening up about his treacherous and difficult mental health fight. His father Robin Williams had a very well-known serious drug and alcohol addiction that he had to overpower. Sadly, overcome with his Lewy Body disease he committed suicide back in 2014.

In the series, Zak explained, "There's a generational issue going on. I've experienced mental health issues my entire life. I had obsessive-compulsive disorder, having to count out certain actions before I went to bed at night, obsessing over things. I didn’t sleep very much as a kid. I had really bad insomnia, a lot of energy and a racing mind and I inherited that to some degree."

This is what lead him down the same road his dad did: "As an adolescent, I found using alcohol and drugs helped me calm my mind. It became a very normal experience to rely on them and things like that to manage the racing mind. I started to realize elements of myself that were like him [Robin Williams]. My anxiety, my bouts of depression, OCD, drugs, drinking like him."

"When I wasn't self-medicating, things felt completely overwhelming for me. And it just became part of my identity to get through the day. The weird thing for me is I would use uppers, cocaine and the like to calm down. I talked to my dad about it, he was similar."

His addiction became the very thing he could connect with his dad about. Apparently Robin "would use uppers as a way of focusing, relaxing. We began to have a deeper, more profound understanding of one another when he decided to stop drinking, which is around the time that I first realized I had a problem. So we engaged around that. I wanted to be able to get to know him better, I didn't understand what he had been through."

Zak and Robin Williams in 2012

The dad to 2-year old son McLaurin said he has vowed to "break the cycle" just like Prince Harry vowed to for his children. "I'm committed to being sober and I'm continuing to treat the underlying symptoms that lead me to addictive behavior and that's a journey. It's only in hindsight that you see this and say 'Wow, there's a generational issue going on.'"