If hooking up with country superstar Taylor Swift, 22, is helping young Conor Kennedy get over the loss of his mother to suicide last spring, cousin Christopher Lawford thinks people should just butt out.
“Mary Richardson was a big-hearted individual who cared deeply for her kids and they’ve suffered greatly for her not being there,” Lawford told the Track. “So whatever Conor has to do to comfort himself, he should do it as long as they are both happy and healthy ... and left alone.”
Lawford, who is in town to promote his new book, “Recover to Live,” said Conor’s dad, Bobby Kennedy Jr., “has always been a great father to his kids” and has spent “a lot of time” with them since Mary, who grappled with depression and addiction, hanged herself last May.
“If that kid needs any help, he will get it,” said the former soap star and filmmaker-turned-global-advocate for recovery programs.
One of the ways the 18-year-old Deerfield Academy student could assuage his grief — and skirt the teenage temptations of alcohol and drugs — is public service, Lawford said. Chris, who battled drugs and booze for more than 25 years and now works to raise addiction awareness, said not only is it the Kennedy family way, it’s a “healthier high.”
“We all grew up with the ethic of public service because when we were born we were given a lot,” said Lawford, a California father of three. “It feels good to be of service because it’s not all about yourself. I do it because if I didn’t, Uncle Teddy would have been pissed off. And that’s the truth.”
These days, Lawford works with the White House, the World Health Organization and the United Nations on substance abuse. But his third book addresses not only booze and drugs, but other addictions such as eating, gambling, hoarding, sex and pornography and smoking. He calls them the “Seven Toxic Compulsions.”
“Look, there are people in the world that can’t spend $30,000 or even $3,000 a month on treatment,” Lawford said. “Why should only people with means get the treatment?”
So Chris interviewed “150 of the best brains in the world” — including celebrity counselor Dr. Drew Pinsky — and got their take on their addiction specialities. His cousin, former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy, and ex-Minnesota congressman Jim Ramstad, who battled their own demons, wrote the foreward to “Recover to Live.”
“It wasn’t hard at all to get Patrick,” said Chris, son of the late Patricia Kennedy Lawford and actor Peter Lawford. “He is amazing. Leaving Congress was the best thing he’s ever done. The guy is happy and healthy. He’s got a nice wife, a new kid. He’s always been 115 percent helpful to me — which isn’t the case with everyone in my family.”
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