Patrick Kennedy makes frequent references to the pressures and expectations inherent in his name. “When you grow up in my family, being somebody meant having power, having status,” he said. “The compensations you got were all material and superficial. I’ve come to realize, in the last few months, that that life made me feel all alone.”

Both Mr. Ramstad and Mr. Kennedy are active in a House caucus of about 60 representatives that promotes legislation for treatment of addiction and mental illness. Some of the members are addicts themselves, or recovering addicts, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Ramstad say, but neither would estimate how many.

Mr. Ramstad attended support group meetings with former Representative Phil Crane, Republican of Illinois, who battled alcoholism and says his own recovery was nurtured by the late Senator Harold Hughes, Democrat of Iowa, who spoke of his own struggle with drinking.

“There is a very powerful recovering community in this town,” said Capt. Ronald Smith, the former chairman of psychiatry at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a regular at the Tuesday dinners. A recovering addict, he has treated many senators and congressmen and leads the support group attended by Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Ramstad and Mr. Cleland.

It is unclear, Captain Smith says, whether addiction is more common among politicians, but alcohol does tend to pervade political life, with its cocktail party fund-raisers, endless dinners and constant travel. Ann Richards, the former Texas governor who was buried Monday, used to visit prison inmates and say, “My name’s Ann, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Mr. Ramstad makes repeated mention of “July 31, 1981,” the day he awoke from an alcohol-induced blackout in a Sioux Falls, S.D., jail after creating a disturbance at a hotel coffee shop. He had just finished his first term as a Minnesota state senator. “If I had not wound up in that jail cell, I would not have sought treatment,” Mr. Ramstad said. “I would probably be dead today.”

Mr. Kennedy has endured several public battles with mental illness. He was treated for cocaine addiction as a teenager, suffered from depression as a young adult, was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder after coming to Congress in 1994 and then became addicted to painkillers. He also was prone to binge drinking, which contributed to a scuffle with an airport security guard and a visit from the Coast Guard after a heated argument with a girlfriend aboard a yacht, among other episodes that became public.

The May car crash was the latest embarrassment. The police found Mr. Kennedy disoriented, claiming he was heading to a House vote though Congress was not in session (it was 2:45 a.m.). Mr. Kennedy, who had been driving without headlights before swerving into a police barrier, blamed a mix of prescription medications for the accident.

Both men describe their signature humiliations — Mr. Kennedy’s accident and Mr. Ramstad’s arrest — as “blessings” that spurred them into recovery. “We both totally hit the wall, and it was publicized,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Or the barrier in my case.”

Mr. Ramstad says he has come to “love Patrick like a brother,” although there is more of a paternal tone to his manner when they are together. At one point during the interview, Mr. Ramstad tells him to turn off his hyperactive cellphone. Mr. Kennedy sheepishly obliges. He says he is learning to take instructions from a Republican.

 

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