Bobby Brown on the Drug Deaths of His Children: 'It's My Duty to Remind People It Can Kill You'

Bobby Brown is dealing with feelings of guilt after the substance abuse-related deaths of his children Bobby Brown Jr. and Bobbi Kristina Brown.

On Wednesday's episode of Red Table Talk, titled An Urgent Warning from Bobby Brown, the star opens up to host Jada Pinkett Smith, 49, about the series of emotions he has felt following the loss of two of his children as well as his ex-wife Whitney Houston to drugs — and what he hopes people learn from his struggles.

"It's my duty to remind people that it can kill you," Brown, 52, said as he fought back tears.

On Nov. 18, son Brown Jr., 27, whom he shared with Kim Ward, died of an accidental overdose of cocaine, fentanyl and alcohol. He was found dead at his home in Los Angeles.

His daughter Bobbi Kristina, whom Brown shared with Houston, was 22 when she died on July 26, 2015, six months after she was found unresponsive in her Georgia townhouse. Her death, though officially due to lobar pneumonia following six months in a coma, was also drug-related.

Soon after Brown Jr. died, Ward said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE that their son "was not into drugs," but "was often easily influenced." Now months later, Brown is expressing remorse over his own past struggles with substance abuse, which he feels may have had an impact on his son's decision to experiment with drugs.

"I got to a point where I needed it. I wasn't getting drunk anymore. I wasn't getting a little tipsy anymore. I needed it to wake up. I needed it to stop the shakes and to function on a day-to-day basis," Brown said. "I caught myself in time. I look at it as I can't get no worse than I was because I know my bottom."

Brown has been off narcotics for 19 years and sober from alcohol for nearly one year, he revealed on Red Table Talk.

"Losing [my son] was very, very unexpected, just like losing my daughter," the Grammy winner said. "We were just in the studio two nights before. It was something that hit me really, really hard. He was a musician, played piano, played drums, he was a great writer. He was a teacher and learner. He learned from everybody that he was around and he taught just as much as he learned."

Added the grieving father, "He was someone that I just admired him as a young man and how he grew up. He just wanted to be a part of something that was going to be special. His smile, when he smiled, he just brightened up a room."

Brown also clarified that Brown Jr. "wasn't a [drug] user. He would experiment with different things. It wasn't like he was dependent on drugs like when I was in my situation. I depended, I needed it."

Rather, "He was a young man that tried the wrong stuff and it took him out of here."

Fentanyl, one of the causes of Brown Jr.'s death, is a synthetic opioid, is among "the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the United States," according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

Speaking about young people of today who may be experimenting with substances "to get as high as they can possibly get," Brown explained that such actions are "a real problem because they don't know what these drugs are being mixed with these days."

"There's murderers out there right now that are creating these synthetic drugs that are killing these kids, it's like they're committing murder. That's homicide."

RELATED VIDEO: Bobby Brown to Build Domestic Violence Shelter to Honor Late Daughter Bobbi Kristina

He continued, "My babies are gone. I've been through my time and my time played a part in my son feeling he can test something. I feel guilty about that."

At one point, Pinkett Smith said, "I believe you have a testimony for people that can be so healing, because Bobby, you've been through so much."

Reflecting on the life of his late daughter Bobbi Kristina, who was incredibly close to her brother (they were just one year apart in age), Brown said, "She saw firsthand, things that were wrong. Bobbi Kristina was a super-intelligent, bright [woman], not wanting to be like her mom or myself."

But ultimately, as Pinkett Smith described, she died under "tragic circumstances that eerily mirrored her mother's death three years earlier." Houston was 48 when she died on Feb. 11, 2012 at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel in California, just hours ahead of the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala she was expected to attend. She was also found unresponsive in a bathtub.

Brown says in addition to his daughter's own life struggles, "She, unfortunately, was stuck in an abuse relationship with a man that, with a boy, I should say, that basically controlled her to the point that her life was taken."

Her ex-boyfriend Nick Gordon, 30, died of an accidental heroin overdose on Jan. 1, 2020, three years after he was found liable in the wrongful death case of Bobbi Kristina.

According to Brown — who suspects Gordon had a hand in the deaths of both Houston and their daughter, he tells Red Table Talk, "[Nick] was the only one there with both situations, my ex-wife and my daughter [and] they both died the same way."

Brown, who was in rehab for his alcoholism at the time of Gordon's death, told Pinkett Smith that he had plans to speak with his daughter's ex "to find out how [Bobbi Kristina] was in her last days." But the conversation didn't happen: "I never got a chance to find out from him or talk to him."

The Boston native went on to reveal that he did not know that his daughter was being physically abused because she never told him. Brown said he only learned of the abuse after her death. "That was the hard part," he admitted. "I don't know why I didn't see it."

For Brown, "lots of prayer" has helped him cope with the agony of his daughter's death. He also revealed that the pair had been rekindling their relationship and were becoming "closer and closer" just months before she died. He said on Red Table Talk that she was found unresponsive just two days before she had scheduled a plane ticket to spend time with him.

"If I could just get those two days back, she'd still be here because I would have found out what was going on to do something about it," Brown said. "It was rough, and it still is rough. I think about it every day. I'm filled with ... [compartmentalized pain]. It's pushed down."

"I'm keeping it away from me as much as possible because I couldn't do anything then and I can't do anything now," he explained.

Brown has been able to honor his late daughter by starting a non-profit organization located in Encino, California, which serves as a domestic violence safe haven for victims of abuse. He said it's been a helpful part of his healing process.

"Staring Bobbi Kristina's Serenity House for us was essential to the [healing] process because domestic violence is like a 'Hush, hush' thing," he told Pinkett Smith. "People need to start speaking up if they see someone in a situation like that. Help them, all it takes is one phone call ... And we try to help as much as possible."

Later in their emotional conversation, the actress asked Brown about his marriage to ex-wife Houston. The pair had were wed from July 18, 1992 to April 24, 2007 — and the star agreed that he and the late Houston exhibited their own form of abuse (which he called "violence" in their marriage) by abusing drugs together. "We fought hard verbally, but we loved even harder," he recalled.

"Our love was strong for each other. We showed it to each other time and time again, over and over," Brown said. "We just got caught up and that had nothing to do with how we felt about each other. The love was always there. We struggled really hard as a couple to get clean for ourselves."

He went on to detail that he sobered up "a long time" before Houston, after their divorce. "She was a strong woman ... [But] being an addict, in order to save someone else, I had to save myself first."

Pinkett Smith also addressed the age-old speculation that Brown had introduced his late ex-wife to drugs. Houston's older brother Michael admitted that he was the first person to introduce her to drugs, years after the star's death, in a past interview with Oprah Winfrey. Still, Brown said he did not feel they should blame anyone else but themselves.

When asked if he could say anything to Houston, he told the host he would say, "She's definitely missed in my heart, in my spirit. She was my friend. She was the mother of my child [and] one of the greatest entertainers that I've ever met ... One of the greatest voices the world [could] ever bear witness."

Speaking further on his journey to sobriety, the star said that he decided to officially combat his drug addiction after he was charged with a DUI and served 60 days at Broward County Jail in Florida in 2000.

"I never thought I would spend a day in jail," he said, later joking that it was just enough time to straighten him up. Brown went on to describe the first 20 days of going cold turkey and experiencing withdrawal symptoms in a jail cell "like hell."

But that point in his life turned out for the better. "When I got out, I was like, 'Damn.' I was thankful that they put me in jail. I was seeing everything for the first time again, everything looked beautiful."

After his decades-long battle with substance abuse, Brown is proud to say, "I go to sleep now. I don't pass out."

Brown, whose parents were alcoholics, says he hopes to set a better example now that he has another chance at fatherhood with his three young children with wife Alicia Etheredge.

He said on Red Table Talk, "If I don't break this cycle, who is?"

Brown, who is also dad to older children La'Princia and Landon from a previous relationship, is now a proud grandpa to his two granddaughters, Nilaan and Naloa, who affectionally call him "Pop, Pop."

He told Pinkett Smith, "I got second, third, fourth chances at life. This is something that God wants me to do."

Brown wed Etheredge, 47, in 2012 and the two have welcomed three children together. "She gives me the energy to want to live right, to live righteous," he said on Red Table Talk. "I must commend good women for holding on to us knucklehead men and not giving up on us and I think she helped me see the good in me that I forgot about."

Etheredge, a TV producer said the one thing she wanted to give to Brown through their relationship is "unconditional love and really a reality [check], because he had a lot of yes people."

Speaking of his late son Brown Jr., she said she is still in shock after his November death. "He was such a big part of our lives, such a big person in our world and he was a very kind individual," Etheredge said. "His spirit was just kind and peaceful."

The couple was able to explain Brown Jr.'s death to their youngest son Cassius, 11, with the help of a therapist. "With the tools that they gave us, we sat down and we spoke honest, truthfully, [about] what was found, how he did it. We first asked what he thought. [It's] terrifying for a kid to think that maybe my brother went to sleep and he didn't wake up. You don't want them to sit with that," Etheredge said. Added Brown, "Then he'd be scared to go to sleep."

Etheredge also opened up about the 2015 death Bobbi Kristina, explaining that she feels Brown's late daughter was in a toxic, "codependent" relationship while she was trying to cope with the grief of her mom's death. "She was not being herself, in any facet," explained the producer.

She went on to explain that Bobbi Kristina wanted her life to look together for her dad, whom she wanted to make proud — which she feels is why her stepdaughter was quietly living with addiction and abuse.

"[Bobbi] was hiding; she [was] trying as much not to have us see that [part of her life]. Bobby meant the world to her, so she in her father's eyes always wanted to seem like she was together," Etheredge recalled.

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