Hunter Biden reveals how Jill Biden led intervention to get him sober while detailing his drug and alcohol abuse

The details come as Hunter, 51, releases a new memoir, Beautiful Things

Danielle Zoellner
New York
Monday 05 April 2021 16:13 BST
Comments
Hunter Biden details his past addictions to drugs and alcohol
Leer en Español

Hunter Biden has detailed a family intervention led by his stepmother Dr Jill Biden as he battled his addiction to alcohol and drugs.

The son of President Joe Biden wrote a memoir entitled Beautiful Things, which touched on one moment when his family attempted to intervene and get him clean prior to his father announcing he would run for president.

"One day out of the blue," Hunter, 51, wrote, "my mother called."

Dr Biden encouraged Hunter to come to Wilmington, Delaware, for a "family dinner at the house, that I should come, even stay in Delaware for a few days," according to the memoir.

"I walked into the house, bright and homey as always, and immediately saw my three daughters. I knew then that something was up," he said. "Naomi had come in from New York, where she was in law school at Columbia; Finnegan came in from Philadelphia, where she was at Penn; and Maisy, then a high school senior, had come over from Kathleen's house in Washington."

Read more:

Then Hunter spotted two rehab counselors who were involved in previously getting him clean, which indicated it was an intervention.

During the intervention, Mr Biden, who was on the cusp of announcing his candidacy for president, got emotional. "I don't know what else to do. I'm so scared. Tell me what to do," Mr Biden told his son at the time.

Hunter responded: "Not f***ing this."

When asked about the moment with CBS This Morning, Hunter admitted that his addiction to drugs at the time was more powerful than his "family's love".

"I thought, 'I need to figure out a way to tell him that I'm going to do something so that I can go take another hit," Hunter said. "It's the only thing I could think. Literally. That's how powerful. I don't know of a force more powerful than my family's love. Except addiction."

At the time of the intervention, Hunter left the family home and told his father to never "'ambush me like this again'".

Hunter claims that he was sober from 2008 to 2015 after previously battling with substance abuse. But then his brother Beau Biden's death in 2015 from brain cancer sent him back to drinking and abusing drugs.

"Drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself is absolutely completely debilitating ... smoking crack around the clock, drinking insanely lethal amounts of alcohol," he told CBS This Morning.

He believed his addictions stem from his mother and sister dying in a car crash back in 1972 when he was just two years old.

"I am more convinced now that trauma is at the centre of it," he said. "I don't know why I had such a hard time ever admitting that. There's a lot of research that points to the idea that addicts who suffer from addiction suffered from trauma."

"Beau and I never grieved the loss of our mother and sister. We talked about my mom all the time, but the accident no. The darkness that I know my dad suffered isn't something we talked about until much later. This is why I don't want to admit ... we probably should have. I think they were trying to protect us," he added.

While his father was running for the presidency, Hunter became the butt of many of the Trump campaign's jokes and attacks. But he confessed that the attention didn't stop him from continuing to abuse drugs and alcohol.

"It didn't change my behavior – I still needed to get high and hide and fill that hole," Hunter said.

Hunter's memoir largely details his personal battles with his own demons throughout the years. The title, Beautiful Things, was in homage to his late brother, Beau, because it was something they often said to each other in order to remember the good times.

"It was the last thing that he said to me: 'Beautiful things,'" Hunter said.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in