BY BARBARA NICHOLSON-BROWN
Christoper Kennedy Lawford, the first-born child of President John F. Kennedy’s sister, Patricia, and famous Rat Pack actor, Peter Lawford, grew up on both coasts and experienced the high life of Hollywood and the powerful world of politics from a front row seat. He spent his early teen years experimenting with drugs and getting into all kinds of trouble, culminating in an addiction to heroin. Sober for more than 22 years, Lawford shared his personal story in his memoir “Symptoms of Withdrawal” in hopes of making a difference. He is also the author of “Moments of Clarity” and “Healing Hepatitis C” with Diane Sylvestre.
Barbara Nicholson-Brown: Do you have a specific message to our younger generation who are faced with the challenges and curiosity of “trying” alcohol or drugs?
Christopher Kennedy Lawford: Young people have to understand what they perceive in a moment of adolescent bliss or experimentation may have serious consequences for them down the road. If you said to them at 30, when you were 13, do you wish you would have done that? They may say no to using drugs and alcohol. They need to realize one in ten will end up with a serious addiction problem. If they have it in their family their odds of really having problems with this go up dramatically. We know this from the science. The other thing kids need to understand is that their brains are not fully developed. Even if they binge drink or use drugs on occasion, but don’t become an alcoholic or addict, there will still be an impact on their brain chemistry and there will be some damage from that kind of behavior. It’s not that they aren’t smart kids or productive, creative people, but there are consequences to drug and alcohol behavior, like the kind I engaged in. The consequences can sometimes be immediate and they can be long.
With most of the kids I know, if you give them good information they usually make good decisions. My kids have the genetics and have experimented to a degree. I don’t think any of them thus far have manifested any serious problems. That is because of the information they have gotten from me and their mother firsthand, and the openness of our dialogue with them. Those are significant things. Kids are capable of understanding and I believe they should be told the truth.
BN-B: Let’s talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the living room. What advice can you give families who are facing this situation with their loved ones? 
CKL: The biggest thing about drugs and alcohol is it’s a family disease. If one person has an addiction, then the whole family is sick. That is one of the most difficult things for people to get. The “last person” to get somebody sober or to help somebody is a family member. What I often say to families and people I care about is, “throw the rope, don’t get in the water.”
Go to treatment yourself; go to Al-Anon or programs that will take care of you. One of the great things happening today in treatment is we don’t just treat the alcoholic – we treat the whole family. Oftentimes an addict or alcoholic will go off to treatment and come back to the same family dynamic and systems that were in place before, and they will start using again. So the message always has to be: the addict is not the only problem. It has been my experience, if you’re the one helping you’re the last one to get sober.
BN-B: What do you think is necessary for the conversation to begin?
CKL: These are really difficult things for people to approach when someone is this sick. We pretend it’s not there, we go into denial and we do things to protect ourselves. These are fundamental issues and one of the reasons this is so difficult. It is not because of the addict or alcoholic, it’s the underlying causes and conditions, perceptions and attitudes that go on in families where addictions run rampant. Everyone has stuff to work on and that’s why it is difficult to confront it. I think it’s always a good idea to get someone involved in your family dynamic that is non partisan, objective and a professional. It helps to do some kind of intervention to get the ball going. It’s awfully difficult for families to take this on themselves. Get someone smart who knows the business to come in and walk you through you it.
BN-B: Have you noticed any changes in the last five years in regards to the stigma of addiction?
CKL: Yes to some degree. My cousin Patrick Kennedy (D.R.I.) and Jim Ramstad (D.MN.) helped pass the Parity bill. He said we are going to get this – complete parity on all levels of mental health and addiction. That’s what we need. As a society, as soon as we start doing these kinds of things on this level we take this out of the moral equation – which is there’s something wrong with the alcoholic or the addict – into a place of disease – which is what this is. This is a mental illness. People who suffer from addiction and alcoholism are not at fault, they are not wrong, they are not bad people. They are sick people who need treatment. Just like a diabetic or someone with chronic hypertension who needs a treatment plan, so do alcoholics and addicts. Patrick recently went back to treatment for his mental health. Stigma is all about blame and a misunderstanding of what this is, the fear of not being able to get a handle on it. As a society we’re getting there. I see steady progress, just as cancer had a stigma 20 years ago and really none today, we will see this for addiction in my lifetime.
For more information visit www.christopherkennedylawford.com
