The following is a script from "Patrick Kennedy" which aired on October 4, 2015. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Rich Bonin, producer.
The youngest child of Senator Ted Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy was supposed to be the heir apparent to a political dynasty. But after his father died, Patrick resigned from Congress and is now leading a political movement to change the way people view and talk about mental illness and addiction, that he himself suffers from. He says they're medical issues, not moral issues or character flaws. And he wants them treated with the same urgency we treat cancer and heart disease.
Now nearly five years sober, he has written a memoir, "A Common Struggle," in which he traces not only his struggles but those of his famous father and mother, revealing details about them that not everyone in the family wants revealed and some may dispute. His purpose, he says, is to show that when people have these illnesses being silent about them is almost as bad as the disease.
Patrick Kennedy: It's a conspiracy of silence, not only for the person who is suffering, but for everyone else who's forced to interact with that person. That's why they call this a family disease.
[For more of this story, written by Lesley Stahl, go to http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pa...l-health-60-minutes/]
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