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(Jim) Ramstad reaches out to colleague (Patrick Kennedy) recovering from addiction
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Eric |
| Last Edited | Eric Jun 16, 2006 10:30am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Boston Globe |
| News Date | Monday, June 12, 2006 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | WASHINGTON --They're both congressmen, and they're both addicts.
So when Minnesota Republican Jim Ramstad heard that a friend in a drug-induced state had been in a late-night car wreck, he did what he said any friend in recovery would do: He reached out to help.
The friend was Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the Kennedy family scion from Rhode Island. After a high-profile political dustup in Washington, Kennedy underwent 28 days of treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where he was released early this month.
Ramstad visited him four Saturdays in a row, and agreed to sponsor Kennedy's recovery, accompanying him to recovery meetings and staying in regular contact.
"It was no different for me visiting Patrick Kennedy than it is visiting with 'Patrick Jones,'" Ramstad said. "We recover by talking, listening and supporting each other."
It's the same way Ramstad recovered from alcohol addiction 25 years ago, after he woke up from an alcoholic blackout in a jail cell in Sioux Falls, S.D.
"He's provided a support to me by his ability to incorporate his own experience in a way that I really couldn't get from anyone else," Kennedy said Thursday in an interview with the Star Tribune, his first since returning to Washington. "He's got the perspective of being both a member of Congress and somebody who's in recovery." |
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