The Health and Human Services Secretary made the comment while explaining why he still wanted to attend recovery meetings during the pandemic
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NEED TO KNOW
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on the Thursday, Feb. 12 episode of Theo Von’s podcast This Past Weekend
- During the appearance, the pair revealed they met during substance abuse recovery meetings
- Kennedy also shared that he continued to go to meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, because he was “not scared of a germ”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared more insight into his previous alcohol and substance abuse.
The politician, 72, appeared on the Thursday, Feb. 12 episode of Theo Von's podcast This Past Weekend, where he began discussing how he first met Von, 45, during morning recovery meetings.
Kennedy, who has been in recovery for 43 years, revealed that after the meetings were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he and other members would meet in private. He explained that they formed a "pirate" group that met in person.
“I said I don't care what happens, I'm going to a meeting every day,” he recalled of his decision to attend recovery meetings during the pandemic. “I said, ‘I'm not scared of a germ.’ I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”
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“I know this disease will kill me, right? Like if I don't treat it, which means for me going to meetings every day, it's just bad for my life,” he said. “For me, it was survival.”
He added that the opportunity to help another person in addiction recovery was also beneficial, saying, “That's the secret sauce of the meetings, and that's what keeps us all sober. Keeps us from self-will.”
Kennedy has repeatedly discussed his history of addiction. In 2024, during his presidential campaign, he said drugs bolstered his academic performance.
"I did very, very poorly in school, until I started doing narcotics," Kennedy said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast. "Then I went to the top of my class because my mind was so restless and turbulent and I could not sit still."
"It worked for me," he continued of his past heroin use. "And if it still worked, I'd still be doing it."
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“The only way I stay sober is through taking responsibility for my daily actions," Kennedy said at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in April 2025 in Nashville, two months after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, The Tennessean reported at the time.
Kennedy has said his addiction began in the months after his father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., was assassinated in 1968, USA Today reports. He said his first experience was when he took the hallucinogen LSD at a party and then took opioids while he was walking home from the party.
"They said, 'Try this,' and it was a line of crystal meth," Kennedy said during the April 2025 speech. "I took it, and all my problems went away. My addiction came on full force. By the end of the summer, I was shooting heroin, which was my drug of choice the next 14 years."
In a July 2024 interview on the Shawn Ryan Show, Kennedy described his substance abuse as a "compulsion" that eventually "hollows out your whole life."
Kennedy would become sober in 1983 and credits his sobriety to his arrest for heroin possession while flying to Minnesota that year. It was "the best thing that could have happened to me" because that event led to getting sober, he said on Shawn Ryan.
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If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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