After questioning Cathy about Nick’s drinking, she eventually admits that she has lost control of her son.

“He’s going to wind up in jail, and you’re going to wind up in a civil lawsuit because you allowed this young man to continue killing himself,” Dr. Phil tells her. “Wouldn’t you rather he be sober in jail than risking his and other people’s lives on the street?”

“I want him in a treatment facility. Jail is not the answer for him,” Cathy says.

“He doesn’t want to go to treatment. He says he doesn’t have a problem,” Dr. Phil responds.  

Dr. Phil calls on audience members Paul and Lynn, two parents who lost their 23-year-old son, Philip, to alcohol abuse. Just months before his college graduation, Philip died after a night of heavy partying with his fraternity brothers in Florida during his 2011 spring break. Toxicology reports showed alcohol, cocaine and OxyContin in Philip’s system, but his mother insists his death could have been prevented.

“Is there anything you all want to say to Nick?” Dr. Phil asks Paul and Lynn.

“I really wouldn’t even know where to start. If you knew the kind of pain that we go through every day of our lives, you wouldn’t do this to your mother, buddy," Paul tearfully tells Nick. "You would not do that to your mother. You got a big break to even have a chance to be on this show. I suggest that you at least try.”

“What have you all come to think and feel about what happened?” Dr. Phil asks Paul and Lynn of Philip’s tragic death.

“It was an unnecessary death. He could still be alive if they just watched him,” Paul says.

“Do you all blame the fraternity brothers?” Dr. Phil asks.

“I do,” Lynn asserts. “They were there with him. They knew what he was doing. They could have stopped him. They could have watched him.”