Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a drug addict in the '70s and '80s before he achieved sobriety. Arrested for marijuana in 1970 and heroin in 1983, the Kennedy scion discussed the latter incident on The Shawn Ryan Show in July.
RFK Jr. started by detailing the first time he took LSD on Cape Cod shortly after his father's assassination death in 1968:
The summer after my dad died my house was in chaos. I had 11 siblings, warring Irish kids who were out of hand a lot of the time. My Mom tried to maintain control of them. I went to a party for an elder brother of a friend of mine, who'd just been drafted to go to Vietnam. It was a goodbye party for him. It ended up in a melee. That guy ended up punching a cop and went to jail and ended up not going to Vietnam. I was hitchhiking home from that party and an elder boy, who I knew but not that well, picked me up. He offered me some LSD. I had never taken any drug before... I had an intense interest on paleontology and I said to this guy, "If I take this will I see dinosuars?" He said, "You might." I took this drug and it was really powerful. It was extraordinarily powerful LSD. I had a trip that was probably 10 hours. I had a great time. I ended up going into town and just having a great time.
The next morning, the 15-year-old was fearful about going home:
My mood had dropped and I was filled with remorse... Plus I had to go home and deal with my mother. My mother was a tough lady. She invented tough love. I had not checked in, I had violated my curfew, so I was going to be in a lot of trouble. I was walking home and it was getting darker and darker, three miles from town back to my house. Just before I got to my house I saw some older boys in the woods. I told them I was crashing on the acid. And they said, "Here, try some of this." It was crystal meth. I took a snort of it and I felt great. That experience was the template for my addiction over the next 14 years. I was constantly telling myself I was not going to do something and then doing it. It was strange for me because I had iron willpower. I gave up candy for Lent when I was 13. I gave up desserts the next year. I felt I could do anything with my willpower. But somehow this compulsion to take drugs was completely impervious to it.
My progession was very fast. Within a month I was shooting heroin. Coke and heroin were my drugs of choice over the next 14 years. I was constantly trying to quit. The most demoralizing feature of that disease was my inabilty to keep contract with myself. The addict would step into my head and take control. It was a very, very fast progression.
Then Kennedy made a surprising statement:
I did very poorly in school until I started doing narcotics. Then I went to the top of my class. My mind was so restless and turbulent and I couild not sit still. I was bouncing off the walls. I just wanted to get in the woods. That's the only place that I felt comfortable. In school I was non compos mentis. I had no idea what was happening. I was at the bottom of my class. I started doing heroin and I went to the top of my class. Suddenly, I could sit still. I could read and I could concentrate. I could listen to things people would say and it would make sense to me. I was probably at some level medicating myself. It worked for me and if it still worked I'd still be doing it. But it didn't work. It works really great in the beginning but then it begins exacting a cost. Then the cost gets worse and worse and it kills you. It killed my brother David and it destroys your relationships. It hollows out your whole life. You have a one-dimensional life. It's a bundle of appetites and a full-time job to feed them. Drugs and sex and alcohol and extreme behavior, but it was all about me eventually.
I was kind of functional. I went to law school. I was writing books. People had an idea that something was wrong but no one had a clue how badly off I was.
"What did you get arrested for?" Ryan asked.
For heroin possession. I was on an airplane. I was actually going to South Dakota to detox in a cabin up in the mountains. I had gone out there to detox a couple of times before. It takes about five days to detox from heroin. On my way to the airport I picked up a bag of dope. Somebody saw me go to the bathroom with it and there was police waiting when I landed and they got my luggage. I was arrested which was the best thing that could've happened to me because I could never have gone into a 12-step meeting.. But when I was busted everybody knew. So now I could start going to 12-step meetings.
Kennedy said he had "a spiritual awakening" in the program:
I didn't want to go back on the street white knuckling it, just fighting it all the time. I wanted to be a normal person who just woke up in the morning and just lived their day not wanting do drugs all the time... The 12 steps of that program are designed to induce a spiritual awakening. That's how it's supposed to work.
Kennedy, 70, graduated from Havard in 1976 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982. He's been nominated by President-elect Trump to be the secretary of Health & Human Services.
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