Very Real Troubles That Have Plagued Kids of the Real Housewives

"He had burned through all his family members," Lauri then told the OC Register in response to Josh's side of the story. "He needed a treatment program."

"Josh abandoned his home, abandoned his family," she insisted. "He is my son, but I will not enable him… For the last five years, I've given up my life for him. He has to accept responsibility for himself."

Josh had fallen off the wagon by the following year, and his ensuing series of arrests proved that recovery and rehabilitation have not been attainable for him yet, no matter how far removed he became from his time on RHOC.

"I was traumatized by Josh's arrest," Lauri told the OC Register in 2008 about her decision to leave the show after her son was arrested for heroin possession. "I truly was completely emotionally unavailable. I was crying continually, and I wasn't helping my son. For me, I needed to really pull back, concentrate on my emotional well being and deal with the aftermath of the arrest."

Leaving RHOC "wasn't something I took lightly. We talked this through. This took me weeks to try to figure out. It wasn't a rash decision. Once I bailed Josh out of jail, I just really needed my privacy. It needed to be as much a private matter as possible."

"Josh is not a stranger to problems. He had enough problems before the show. I truly believe drug addiction is a genetic illness. He was predisposed to it, and he has it," Lauri said. "Of course, I think the media sensationalized his drug use. I think the inaccurate reports do him injustice. But Josh's issues were way before the reality shows. He loved doing the show. He wanted to do it this season. But I'm the one who pulled that back."

The allure of reality TV still proved strong as well, and Lauri would pop up occasionally after her official exit; she briefly returned to RHOC in 2013, much to the consternation of Vicki Gunvalson, who blogged that Lauri was back to "stir up trouble."

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