Rep. Patrick Kennedy Completes Treatment Stay

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), a champion for health insurance coverage of addictions and mental illness, has completed a four-week stay at the Father Martin’s Ashley treatment program in Maryland, the Providence Journal reported July 9.

Kennedy refused to specifically detail what prompted his latest stay in treatment, but was upbeat about his prospects for long-term sobriety and credited his personal recovery network for alerting him to the need to seek professional help before a relapse occurred.

“I was able to stay on top of it without it taking me down the road that it took me down before — where I ended up on the front pages of the newspapers and tabloids and TV stations,” said Kennedy, who added that coping with the terminal brain cancer of his father, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), was one of the major stresses in his life.

Kennedy said the outside advice helped because he lives “a very fast-paced life and I have what is known as the disease of denial.”

Kennedy has acknowledged past problems with alcohol and prescription drugs, and entered treatment in May 2006 after a car crash in Washington, D.C. He sought to reassure voters who might worry that he has cast votes while impaired.

“The answer is I have the most public life that you could possibly imagine as a recovering addict and alcoholic,” Kennedy said, noting that he can’t even walk past a bar without people wondering if he had been drinking. Given his past history, Kennedy added that he would “have to work awfully hard” to get his hands on prescription pain pills.