Pubdate: Thu, 23 Feb 2012
Source: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2012 Allied Press Limited
Contact:  http://www.odt.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/925

JFK'S NEPHEW SPREADS CLEAN-LIVING MESSAGE

Chris Kennedy Lawford has had a life less ordinary: a nephew of John
F. Kennedy, a famous actor for a father and a childhood that included
dancing with Marilyn Monroe.

But the actor and author is not in New Zealand to discuss his movie
career acting alongside Anthony Hopkins or his cousin's estranged
husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The United Nations Goodwill Ambassador on drug dependence and
treatment is a guest of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, spreading the
word about the dangers of addiction.

"I was a pig at the gate. I basically took anything and everything. I
was looking for a way out and anything that could get me there," said
Lawford, the son of Peter Lawford and Pat Kennedy, JFK's sister.

"I shouldn't be here today. I died four times. I overdosed. I was dead
on the gurney."

The 56-year-old, who has been clean for 26 years, said 10% of the
population suffered from addiction.

"A kid that suffers great trauma in their adolescence is much more
susceptible to addiction disease later in life, especially if their
parents had it. That's what happened to me.

"I come from alcoholism, I come from divorce; two of my uncles [John
and Robert Kennedy] were brutally assassinated publicly. I was an
angry, terrified kid at the age of 13 and drugs and alcohol gave me a
way out."

He spent 17 years battling addiction.

"I was going to follow my uncle Jack, JFK, my hero. I was to study
history, win a Pulitzer Prize, become a war hero, overcome a major
health problem and, at 43, become President.

"But I moved in next door to a commune of heroin addicts, and that was
the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Jefferson and hello to
emergency rooms and doctors."

He still remembers vividly when his moment of clarity struck
him.

"It was February 17, 1986. It was a freezing cold day in Boston. I was
at the end. I had tried everything humanly possible - doctors,
experimental drugs, drug therapy, changing girlfriends, going to
graduate school, locking myself in a room for a week at a time to detox.

"That morning, I was done. I would have done anything. I thought I had
to kill myself, because I couldn't get sober ... But I didn't have a
gun."

He called a cousin who had recovered from addiction, who told him to
go back to recovery groups.

"What people don't understand is that if you have this thing, you
can't just say `no'."

In New Zealand, he has visited Arohata Prison, where he met a group of
women undergoing a six-month treatment programme for P addiction.

He said addiction was often misunderstood, and it did not prevent him
from functioning.

He gained an arts degree from Tufts University, a doctorate from
Boston College Law School and a master's certification in clinical
psychology from Harvard Medical School - all while immersed in addiction.

"If you think all drug addicts are lying in the gutter, think again.
They're mums, professors, lawyers, politicians. They're everywhere."
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