Pawn Stars’ Rick Harrison is opening up about the death of his son.
Over a year after his son Adam died from a drug overdose at 39, the reality star shared how the loss has impacted his life. In a preview of his appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Harrison explained that he is still grieving.
“I think about him every day,” he said. “In his twenties, he had drug problems. I mean, God, I put him in rehab so many times and every time he’d be doing great, and then he would just fall back. I mean, you’ve heard the same story from a million people, and it got really, really bad, and apparently it wasn’t heroin he got — he ended up getting some Fentanyl. It killed him.”
Adam died on January 19, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and ever since, Harrison revealed he wonders how things could have been different.
“The thing is, when you lose a kid, you second guess f—ing everything,” he admitted. “It’s like, ‘Could I have done this? Could I have done this? Could I have done this? Could I have done this?’ And it’s like it goes through your brain constantly. There’s not a day I don’t [think] about him.”
“I mean, I think I did everything right,” he added. “You just sit in your head, ‘What if I did this? What if I did this?’ You know what I mean? What if I just grabbed him, f—ing locked him in the back of my truck, drove him to Oregon and put him over to where he couldn’t get [drugs]? I mean, you have a hundred things go through your mind. There is nothing worse than losing a kid.”
Harrison then recalled a time when Adam “broke in” to his house and he didn’t know what to do.
“I figured maybe if we put him in jail for two months it’ll clean him out, but he just went straight back on it,” he said. “You try to give him tough love but, God, you just never see the OD coming. You want to give them tough love and everything but I never thought that would happen.”
“It’s hard,” Harrison noted. “There’s no instruction book with kids. They’re all different models.”
Rick Harrison/ Instagram
Now, the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop owner said he tries to focus on the positives in his life, like his two other sons, Jake and Corey, and his four grandchildren.
“[You have to] appreciate what you got, because it’s not you’re not always going to have it,” he explained. “I spend as much time with my kids as I can. I talk to all my kids on the phone almost every day. I love my kids, love my grandkids. You enjoy life. I mean, I literally know guys that’ve got 10 times as much money as me, and I do all right, that are miserable.”
Harrison then revealed the biggest lesson he has learned from experiencing tragedy: “It is easy to enjoy life. It really is. Just don’t be around the people that are miserable and just enjoy life with your family and your friends and everything. It’s really it’s not that hard to be happy.”
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In Depth with Graham Bensinger debuts in broadcast syndication across the U.S. this weekend.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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