RHOSLC: Mary Cosby Reveals How Life Has Been with Son Robert Jr. After Rehab: ‘He Wanted to Change’

Mary Cosby is offering an update on how her son is doing after going to rehab for a drug addiction. 

In part two of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City reunion on Wednesday, Jan. 29, Mary opened up about Robert Jr.’s sobriety journey after he confessed to struggling with drugs and opened up about his mental health in an emotional scene earlier this season. He went on to enroll in a 30-day rehab program, and Mary said she is proud of him for sharing his story.

“My mission was accomplished,” she said. “Robert and I came together and I told him that I was gonna talk to him and I wanted him to openly tell me what was his struggle, what was going on, because I [knew] he’s absent. We didn’t plan on what we were gonna say but we came together and said, ‘If we can help just one person, then we’ll just tell our truth.’ When the cameras went up, he told me what he did and I just immediately wanted to help him.”

“The mission was to help someone,” she continued. “And I feel like with the love I’ve been receiving, someone resonated, someone connected, someone understood me.”

Thinking back to that moment, a tearful Mary said she never expected to hear her son say the things he did.

“I didn’t know that he was doing all that, and the fact that I was unaware scared me because he lives in my house,” she said. “We’re so close, and I just was shocked.”

When host Andy Cohen, who also grew teary-eyed listening to Mary, asked how Robert Jr. responded to rehab and getting clean, she said she made sure the decision was his own because she knew that if “he doesn’t want to change, all of it’s no good.”

“He wanted to go,” she revealed. “And the way that he was telling me and opening up to me, that was a cry of help. That was him saying, ‘Mom, help me. I’m drowning, and I don’t know if it’s a problem or an addiction.’ He was kind of in a crossroads. He didn’t really know, but whatever it was, he wanted to change.”

Since returning home, Mary says Robert Jr. has been “good,” but the road to recovery is still challenging.

“I still worry because I feel like once you go to rehab, you have to change your friends,” she explained, saying he spends more time at home and “for the most part” isn’t friends with the people he used to spend his time around. “He goes to those classes, AA classes, he does those frequently and he has friends he has met from there.”

Calling him her “everything,” she went on to explain that although she was heartbroken to learn about Robert Jr’s suicidal ideations and drug use, she was proud of him for being open and honest with her.

“He’s worthy, you know. And I want him to believe that,” Mary cried. “I feel like we are our worst critic, we’re really hard on ourselves. And I see that through him and that he is really hard, and I just don’t want him to be like that, and I wish I could change it.”

Reflecting on her own childhood, Mary said she tried her whole life to give her son everything she didn’t have, even moving to New York for eight years so he could grow up in “a diverse atmosphere” with “the best education.” At some point, she admitted she felt his struggles were her fault.

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“I do blame myself,” Mary said. “I feel like somewhere I missed the mark on catching it, but I feel like everybody has their own journey, everybody has their own testimony, everybody has their own story, and I feel like that one is for him.”

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.