VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Pumpkin Shannon Reveals How She’s Dealing With Mama June’s Recovery From Meth Addiction
Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon revealed that although Mama June has made progress with her drug addiction, she is still addicted to her husband, Geno Doak.
“She was a single parent to four girls and provided for us, but now it’s kind of like she can’t stand on her own,” Shannon told uInterview’s Erik Meers.
She described the challenges Mama June has gone through to kick her drug habit and get her family’s trust back. “We started noticing some changes obviously, like with locks on the bedroom doors and things like that, but we weren’t really aware of the drug habit,” she said, remembering the beginning of Mama June’s addiction problems.
In 2019, “she was caught, her and Geno both,” said Shannon, “in Macon County, Alabama with a drug possession of crack-cocaine, paraphernalia, a needle, things like that.”
“Last season she finished rehab,” Shannon said, “and now this season we kind of pick back up at that place, and now her and Geno seem to be in a better place, but now they’re trying to actually get through the recovery process, not just the rehab this time.”
“She just still needs to give us our space,” she said, “there’s a lot of healing that needs to be done there.”
“Over a period of time it does get to a point where it’s like you have to take care of yourself,” she added, saying that she’s also taking care of her daughter Ella Grace and her 15-year-old sister Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson.
“Even after we moved I didn’t feel so much in danger anymore,” she said. “In this season, you see that Mama didn’t know where we lived, still doesn’t know where we live, so that’s just kind of not only to protect me, but to protect my family.”
Shannon said that she hopes this time Mama June can overcome her addiction. “Statistically, she is supposed to fail within the first year, a lot of therapists have told us that, you know just so we are aware, so we don’t get our hopes up again,” she said. “But I’m hoping that maybe this time is different because before we were just kind of forcing the rehab and you know making her go on our time and then she didn’t want to go until she was ready and so this time it does seem more like she’s willing to go and willing to get her family back.”
Although her mother is succeeding in kicking her addiction to drugs, according to Thompson, she is failing to recognize her addiction to Geno.
“Geno is an addiction problem of hers, and he can be very manipulative,” she said, adding, “And it just kind of sucks, cause my Mama used to be a very strong woman, who didn’t let any man stand in her way.”
Check out Mama June: Road To Redemption on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on WETV.
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