{"id":19014,"date":"2025-04-26T16:47:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T15:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=19014"},"modified":"2025-08-10T16:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T15:50:10","slug":"rfk-recounts-heroin-addiction-and-spiritual-awakening-urges-focus-on-prevention-and-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/04\/rfk-recounts-heroin-addiction-and-spiritual-awakening-urges-focus-on-prevention-and-community\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK recounts heroin addiction and spiritual awakening, urges focus on prevention and community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\"\"<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n

by Health News Florida and by <\/span>Associated Press – p<\/span>ublished April 25, 2025<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Rx and Illicit drug Summit, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. Photo: George Walker IV – AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Speaking at a conference on drug addiction, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said young people need a sense of purpose and a connection to family to prevent them from turning to drugs.<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n
\n

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a personal story of his own heroin addiction, spiritual awakening and recovery at a conference on drug addiction Thursday and emphasized that young people need a sense of purpose in their lives to prevent them from turning to drugs.<\/p>\n

Kennedy called addiction \u201ca source of misery, but also a symptom of misery.” In a speech that mentioned God more than 20 times, he pointed to his own experience feeling as though he had been born with a hole inside of himself that he needed to fill.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery addict feels that way in one way or another \u2014 that they have to fix what’s wrong with them, and the only thing that works are drugs. And so threats that you might die, that you’re going to ruin your life are completely meaningless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to about 3,000 people at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, Kennedy did not address recent budget and personnel cuts or agency reorganizations that many experts believe could jeopardize public health, including recent progress on overdose deaths.<\/p>\n

Kennedy drew cheers when he said that we need to do \u201cpractical things\u201d to help people with addictions, like providing them with Suboxone and methadone. He also said there should be rehabilitation facilities available for anyone who is ready to seek help. But he focused on the idea of prevention, signaling his view of addiction as a problem fueled by deteriorating family, community and spiritual life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have this whole generation of kids who\u2019ve lost hope in their future,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve lost their ties to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy said policy changes could help reestablish both of those things. Though Kennedy offered few concrete ideas, he recommended educating parents on the value of having meals without cellphones and providing opportunities for service for their children.<\/p>\n

The best way to overcome depression and hopelessness, he said, is to wake up each morning and pray \u201cplease make me useful to another human being today. \u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested that cellphones are a pernicious influence on young people and that banning them in schools could help decrease drug addiction. He cited a recent visit to a Virginia school that had banned cellphones, saying that grades were up, violence was down and kids were talking to one another in the cafeteria.<\/p>\n

Kennedy told attendees that he was addicted to heroin for 14 years, beginning when he was a teenager. During those years, he was constantly making promises to quit, both to himself and to his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be someone who woke up every morning thinking about drugs,” he said, noting that one of the worst parts of addiction was his total \u201cincapacity to keep contracts with myself.”<\/p>\n

Kennedy said he eventually stumbled upon a book by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung that claimed people who believed in God got better faster and had more enduring recoveries, so he worked to rekindle his faith and started attending 12-step meetings.<\/p>\n

Kennedy was interrupted several times by hecklers shouting things like, \u201cBelieve science!\u201d He has been heavily criticized by scientists and public health experts for pushing fringe theories about diet, vaccines, measles and autism, among other things.<\/p>\n

One heckler was escorted out of the ballroom with a raised middle finger. Without responding directly to the hecklers, Kennedy said that he tries to learn from every interaction, even with people who give him the finger because they don’t like his driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod talks to me most through those people,\u201d he told the group.<\/p>\n

University of Washington researcher Caleb Banta-Green was among those escorted out after he stood up and shouted, “Believe science! Respect spirituality! Respect choice! Respect government workers!\u201d\u00a0\u201cSpirituality is an essential part of recovery for some people; 12 step works great for the people it works for, however, it should never be mandated,\u201d Banta-Green said in an email after the program.\u00a0He added, \u201cWe have decades of science-based interventions that are proven effective for supporting recovery and reducing death from substance use disorder. The problem we have is massive underfunding.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: https:\/\/health.wusf.usf.edu\/health-news-florida\/2025-04-25\/rfk-recounts-heroin-addiction-and-spiritual-awakening-urges-focus-on-prevention-and-community<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

<\/main><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Health News Florida and by Associated Press – published April 25, 2025 Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Rx and Illicit drug Summit, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. Photo: George Walker IV – AP Speaking at a conference on drug addiction, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,30,68,120,104,40,19,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-mental-health","category-political-sector","category-prevention-research","category-usa","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}