Captain Lee Rosbach, ‘Below Deck’ Star, Breaks Silence on Son Josh Rosbach’s Accidental Overdose

In July, Below Deck star Lee Rosbach’s son Josh passed away from an accidental overdose at age 42, and Rosbach opened up about his son’s death for the first time in an interview with the Page Six, telling that outlet, “There’s a hole there that can’t be filled.”

“I hate going to sleep, and I hate waking up. There’s a hole there that can’t be filled,” he said. “And the person who said, ‘time heals all wounds,’ is full of it. It doesn’t. The only thing that time may do for you is allow you to learn the skills you need to cope with the situation that you’re dealing with. As parents, you’re not designed to bury your children.”

“The hard times for me are the alone times, when I’m on my own,” the Bravo personality continued. “Those are hard. I don’t laugh a lot any more. Things aren’t too funny. Once in a while something will slip in, and it feels good when it happens. And it gives you that glimmer of hope that you can get through it.”

Josh had battled opioid addiction for years, and Rosbach revealed that he and his wife, Mary Anne, “spent 20 years, every night, waiting for the phone call saying either he was in jail or that he was dead,” though they thought their son was in a good place after he had been off painkillers and heroin for six months. Ultimately, Rosbach was the one to find his son after he passed at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“I walked in and he was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands, and I thought he had just passed out. I felt relieved. I thought he was fine,” he recalled. “Then I went over to give him a hug, and he was cold. He’d gone.”

Medical examiners said that Josh had purchased pills appearing to be prescription opioids but were actually counterfeit pills laced with five substances including cocaine, heroin and Fentanyl.

Rosbach said that he and his wife aren’t sure how their son initially got into drugs, though he speculated that the choice may have begun as a way for Josh to self-medicate.

“For 20 years, every spare dime that Josh had that didn’t have to go into paying bills or something like that, went to drugs. And they turn into recluses. They don’t socialize with anyone. They don’t go out. They’re embarrassed in social situations,” he said. “You’ll have them at a family function and all of a sudden, they’ve gone missing and you don’t see them for 10 or 15, 20 minutes, and all of a sudden they reappear. ‘Where did you go?’ ‘Oh, I had a phone call to make.’ And you know what they were doing. You’re just powerless to stop it.”

The reality star added that he hopes to work to fight the opioid crisis when he feels up to the task.

“I don’t want to start something, then not be able to finish it,” he said, explaining that he wanted to share his family’s story may help others who have been impacted by addiction.

“That’s my endgame right now, because I can’t do anything else for my son right now,” Rosbach said. “He’s gone.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Bravo