ShareThisChristopher Kennedy, a public policy consultant for care and treatment centers, is also the best-selling author of "Symptoms of Withdrawal," his personal story of recovery and redemption.
His latest book, "Moments of Clarity: Voices From the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery," is on The New York Times best-seller list. It is a compilation of stories of ordinary and famous people who share their own moments of clarity when recovery from addiction became a reality. Among the famous in the book are Alec Baldwin, Jamie Lee Curtis and Martin Sheen. As the son of actor Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy, Christopher Kennedy is a nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy.
Q: In many cases genetics seems to be at the root of addiction, as in your case, but did anything about your upbringing help you climb out of the abyss of addiction?
A: Oh, yeah. I mean, I was somebody who, and like a lot of people in "Moments of Clarity," I did not like my life. I did not like who I was. I did not like what I was doing. I did not like turning my back on all the opportunities that I was given. But I was powerless at that time to do anything about it. I tried everything you can possibly do. I was powerless. Because I come from people who really want to make the most out of their lives and really want to make a difference in the world, I always had that ethic inside of me, to be better than I was. A lot of the people in "Moments of Clarity" talk about that they wanted to be better than they were.
Q: Not all moments of clarity are harsh, but most seem to follow some kind of episode, and recovery doesn't necessarily come right away.
A: No, it doesn't, and often times I think the most common aspect to all of these moments of clarity is a moment of surrender. It is sort of a gentle moment. It's a moment of giving up, of profoundly giving up. With me it was Feb. 17, 1986. I walked to these windows, and I looked out to the street, and I thought I am either going to kill myself or give up. I gave up that morning on a level like nothing I'd ever done before, and it changed my life. I didn't know at that time, in that moment, that my life had been transformed. That was a spiritual sort of revelation to me.
Q: So many of the stories in the book have a spiritual connection. You grew up Catholic. Your mother even graduated from Rosemont College, an all-girls Catholic school. Did what you learned growing up help?
A: Look, I grew up Catholic, but I left the Catholic Church when I was 13 years old after my Uncle Bobby was assassinated, saying I would never go back, and I didn't really have a need for God and I didn't really believe in God. He wasn't useful to me. But I had gotten an understanding that there were spiritual people. My grandmother, Rose Kennedy, was a devout Catholic, but she was also a very spiritual person. She walked and meditated every day of her life. Her faith and spirituality got her through enormous trauma. That was not lost on me. My grandmother was this beacon of equilibrium in a world that was crazy.
Q: What about your own children? Do they understand drinking is going to be Russian roulette for them, and are they spiritual?
A: I baptized two of my kids. I did not baptize the third one, because I am not a Catholic. That's just not something that speaks to me. I have my own tradition. I go to an ashram. I meditate. I chant. I do all that kind of stuff. My kids have been exposed to that. They know about God as we understand God, and hopefully that will be useful to them in their life. I told them that their grandfather, my father, died of alcoholism. This is a thing that runs in families, and their chances of having this are greater then normal.
Q: Chris, it's been 22 years for you being sober. Do you ever consider yourself cured?
A: No, not at all. I have a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of a spiritual program. Pretty much I work with other people -- that's my spiritual program. I constantly have my recovery in the forefront of my life. I live my life very imperfectly through a set of principles, spiritual principles that guide me. You know, turning your will and your life over to the care of something bigger than you and doing those kinds of things that keep me comfortable enough not to use drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are merely symptoms of a more pervasive fundamental illness. A disease of attitudes and perceptions, it is a mental illness.
Q: So managing it is the way to stay sane.
A: It's a daily thing. I just don't drink today. I don't think I'm going to stay sober the rest of my life. I hope I do, but it's just today. The thing about this book is that what happened to me on Feb. 17, 1986, was miraculous in the sense that the previous 17 years I had an obsession to use drugs and alcohol. Every night I would go to bed and I would say I am not going to do that tomorrow. Every tomorrow came and I would do it again because of the obsession, the craving. Feb. 17, 1986, the foundation was laid for that obsession to be removed from my life. That is miraculous. If I were to put drugs and alcohol back in my system, I have no doubt it would ignite that obsession. I would be down the rabbit hole in the blink of an eye.
Patricia Sheridan can be reached at psheridan(at)post-gazette.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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