Patrick Kennedy reveals family’s struggles with alcohol in new book

Boston Globe ^ | 10/3/15 | Christopher Rowland and Matt Viser

[raccoonradio]

Kennedy, in a book scheduled to be released Monday, provides an intimate picture of a dysfunctional family and some of its well-publicized struggles with alcoholism and mental health issues — and what he describes as a blanket of secrecy that papered over their problems...The book, which Kennedy will discuss on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night, is bound to rile other members of the famous family.

“I know how some of them are going to react,” Kennedy says in a brief excerpt from the show released by CBS. “They’re angry.”

He describes a drunken sailing trip in 2000 that turned out to be an embarrassment, and he says he threw up in an Air Force One bathroom on the way to Ireland after too many rum and cokes.

Two days before an infamous crash at the US Capitol in 2006, he writes, he drank eight straight miniature vodkas on the Acela from New York to Washington. No one was injured in the subsequent crash, which occurred in the middle of the night. Kennedy blamed it on taking a combination of Ambien and Phenergan.

In another telling anecdote, Kennedy writes about his father admonishing him at a family gathering after the funeral of Ted Kennedy’s sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, in 2006.

His father was upset that, after he had crashed into a barrier at the US Capitol, Kennedy had gone public with his issues of addiction, in a New York Times article that appeared just days before the funeral.

“He called the article a disaster — the word he always used to describe the most extreme situations,” Kennedy writes. “How dare I talk about the family this way? How dare I discuss ‘these things’ in public?..."

[nathanbedford]

Those of us who are old enough to have experienced the haunting black-and-white images on television in those poignant days of November 1963 are well aware of the power of myth.

The Kennedy legacy, from the beginning almost entirely a media created phenomenon, has distorted American politics for more than half a century and it is high time that historians revise the myth. Yes, the facts or many of them have been out for decades but now with this account it has become more politically correct to tell the truth.

The Kennedys and alcoholism is something that ought to be thoroughly explored and the addiction of John F. Kennedy certainly cannot be omitted. Someday the account of the Cuban missile crisis will have to be squared with Kennedy's addiction and the world will learn whether JFK was buzzed with amphetamines at the time. Was it Robert who actually was the pilot in that crisis? The Kennedy alcoholism and Phil addiction means that these questions should be addressed by history.

It is important that myths which create larger than life figures not be tolerated in a free society because that in part is what has given us Barack Obama. Add to these tendencies the "martyrdom" of John F. Kennedy and the myth was irresistible for decades.

We conservatives ought to be mindful that this human temptation to create demigods of political champions occurs on our side of the aisle even if only to a lesser degree.

[dynachrome]

“Ted’s been sober for over 6 years now.”

LOL

[Moonman62]

[gogeo]

The sins of the parents...

I hope his journey to sobriety and health is successful.

[Libloather]

Unscrew, pour, drink. I don’t see the struggle.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or just plain overlooking the crazy careening course of their sin. Alcohol abuse isn’t a problem that presents itself in a vacuum.

The Camelot never came together for these people because it never had a basis in reality. They were all trying to be kings and queens using one another shamelessly. Love as from God didn’t get acknowledged; pride and exploitation as from the devil did.

[HiTech RedNeck]

In fact maybe YOU are also a demigod wannabe? :-)

[onyx]

I hate to admit this, but I think I want to read Patrick’s book.

YIKES!

[Third Person]

Brave.

[nathanbedford]

Maybe YOU are a tosser?

[nuconvert]

Sheesh. Was that written by the cop?

[Rebelbase]

Grease fires don’t drink.

[fieldmarshaldj]

A single book ? It could fill libraries.

[Graybeard58]

What about the Kennedy that went into a tree in Aspen a few years back playing a game of “toss football” while skiing downhill?

**********************************************************************

Are you thinking of Sonny Bono?

[GreenHornet]

What about the Kennedy that went into a tree in Aspen a few years back playing a game of “toss football” while skiing downhill?

********************************************************************** Are you thinking of Sonny Bono?

Actually, both Sonny Bono and the Kennedy family member mentioned above (sorry, I can't recall the first name) died within a week or so of each other after hitting a tree while skiing. Bizarre.

[RetiredTexasVet]

” Kennedy writes. “How dare I talk about the family this way? How dare I discuss ‘these things’ in public?...”....”

Well, let’s see. Anyone not dead living in New England would certainly know that the majority of the Kennedys were drunks, drug addicts, scofflaws, rapists, and worse....but of course one was not to talk about it publicly!!!!!

[AAABEST]

The Kennedys are truly a sick bunch.

The Kennedy curse, if true, is well deserved, if only for what they did to the forgotten sister Rosemary.

[Baldwin77]

Michael Kennedy, son of Robert - skiing death
http://www.cnn.com/US/9712/31/kennedy.update.2/

[Baldwin77]

I wonder if he sheds any light on the car in the river incident, in the book.

[Our man in washington]

Said many times before, but worth repeating:

The Kennedys; Can’t drive, can’t swim, can’t ski, can’t fly, but they want to tell the rest of us how to live!