Joan Kennedy hospitalized for alcohol abuse

Cape Cod Times ^ | November 19, 2007 | Patrick Cassidy

[Gay State Conservative]

Yup...real classy.But not surprising to those who know the Kennedys.Particularly the younger ones.

[Gay State Conservative]

Looks like they’re already in control;. That was not said in the story which was posted. Thanx.

That's something that folks outside of Massachusetts aren't likely to know.

[purpleraine]

It’s not a surprise. What I’ve read about her seems to indicate she needs serious help. Of course, I’m not in the inner circle. : )

[fatnotlazy]

Who knows if her early days with The Swimmer enhanced her disease or if it would have surfaced anyway.

***

The Kennedy men in general would be enough to drive anyoen to drink.

The patriarch always looked like a nice lovable old man. Wrong! He was the meanest SOB of the bunch. And at least two of his sons and a number of his grandchildren were apparently just like him.

[Gay State Conservative]

It’s not a surprise. What I’ve read about her seems to indicate she needs serious help.

I don't know about you but I'm not willing to give her kids the benefit of the doubt regarding their motives.They never did anything to stop their old man from drunkenly assaulting waitresses in DC restaurants,etc.But then he,unlike their mother,never contemplated selling a piece of real estate worth 6+ million dollars.

There's a talk show host in Boston who talked at length about the whole matter while it was happening.It was a really filthy and transparent stunt they pulled on her...trust me when I tell you that.

[yorkie]

Kennedy's children become her guardians

The above was posted on February 25, 2005, in the Boston local news.

[Plains Drifter]

The early days with the Swimmer aka “The Pig” had to have enhanced her drinking problems. I’ve read two books on the family one about her, I believe it was called “The Joan Kennedy Story”. The whole book talked about how Teddy dumped on her from day one with affairs, alcohol and drugs. The second book a biography of Ted Kennedy called “Senatorial Privilege”. This book went into great detail on how “the Pig” conducted himself. In the book it described how much he liked other men’s wives who worked for him, alcohol, and drugs such as cocaine. Quite often in the book it described scenes where Teddy had all three at the same time.

[Zakeet]

She used to be pretty and sober at one time, too. ... When was that?

Here she is in 1979. Judge for yourself.

Not sure when she first fell off the wagon, but it was presumably sometime after she married Fat Boy.

[yorkie]

>> "Not sure when she first fell off the wagon" <<

The answer may be found in the following article from Boston Magazine:

The Fall of Joan

That famous accident, which would dash any chance Ted Kennedy had to become president, occurred on a sultry July night in 1969, when the senator drove off a bridge on the island of Chappaquiddick, at the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. A young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne was beside him. His car plunged into a shallow waterway, Poucha Pond, landing upside down. Kopechne drowned; Kennedy swam to shore, leaving her body in the water to be found by Edgartown police. Afterward, his wife stood by her man, even at Kopechne's funeral. Already pregnant with another child, Joan would lose the baby a month later. "For a few months everyone had to put on this show, and then I just didn't care anymore. I just saw no future. That's when I truly became an alcoholic," she told Laurence Leamer.