Hunter Biden on addiction and 'the gift of being publicly shamed' | NPR's Newsmakers

**Scott Simon** (0:03)
Hi, Scott Simon here with a special episode. Conversation from our sister show, Newsmakers, home of NPR's biggest interviews. Today, Hunter Biden.

**Hunter Biden** (0:13)
I was on a plane once, I was seven years sober, and nothing was going wrong. And somebody asked me if I wanted a drink. And 10 years later, I woke up in a motel with a crack pipe.
My dad got older before people's eyes, and I think that made them very nervous.

**Scott Simon** (0:31)
You were pardoned by your father.

**Hunter Biden** (0:32)
Yes, thank God.

**Scott Simon** (0:33)
Did that open the door for President Trump to pardon some of his supporters, including the January 6th gang?

**Hunter Biden** (0:39)
I think that that is an insane argument.

**Scott Simon** (0:45)
Hunter Biden has been all over the Internet lately. He's trolled President Trump and discussed his past struggles with addiction. But he's also made appearances with some fierce critics, including the conservative podcaster and conspiracy theorist, Candace Owens. When we sat down with Hunter Biden in NPR studios in New York City this week, he told us he had nothing left to hide.
You've been speaking out so much in the past few months on lots of different platforms. I'm struck by your first post on X though, back in May was, I'm Hunter Biden you've never actually heard from me.

**Hunter Biden** (1:24)
Yeah.

**Scott Simon** (1:25)
What do you want people to hear?

**Hunter Biden** (1:28)
Well, the most important thing that I think I can do with a platform that I never asked for is to speak to the millions of people, the over 50 million Americans who are still sick and suffering out there as it relates to addiction. The one thing that I know that I have a double PhD in is addiction and recovery.
I have a lot to say about a lot of other things, but that's really all bait to get people to start to have a open discussion about something that I am absolutely positive, it impacts all of us, and that's addiction.

**Scott Simon** (2:22)
Looking back, how did that begin for you?

**Hunter Biden** (2:29)
You know, I'm a believer in the idea that people can be genetically predisposed to addiction.
And so I think that that part, that definitely plays a part in it.
But for me, it began the way that it begins for so many, is, you know, I was a kid that had an incredibly loving and beautiful childhood, but also filled with trauma.

**Scott Simon** (3:09)
Well, I mean, your family suffered an incredible loss.

**Hunter Biden** (3:13)
Yeah.

**Scott Simon** (3:14)
I believe you were two years old.

**Hunter Biden** (3:15)
Yeah.

**Scott Simon** (3:16)
The death of your mother and the sister.

**Hunter Biden** (3:19)
Yeah. And I never wanted to associate, because it feels like a loss of control when something happens to you when you're two years old, just about three, and that trauma, my brother and I being in the accident and being in that car with my mom and my sister, is I never wanted to believe or blame what I, for so long, kind of felt was my own failing, my own failing that I couldn't control my drug use. When I say drug use, I consider alcohol the most dangerous drug that there is, at least for this addict.
The way that it started is that this is something that I tell everybody now, is that I think the hardest question addicts and alcoholics have answering the people that love them is why. You know, why do you keep doing it?

**Scott Simon** (4:28)
And when you know it's hurting you, and for that matter hurts the people you love.

**Hunter Biden** (4:33)
And the devastation is the blast radius of your addiction is not just impacting you, but concentric circles around you. And the true answer is this, is because at first it works, is that I was like so many people, is that I had a happy childhood, but I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I, and from the most trivial thing of being able to ask the girl to dance, to, you know, do public speaking, but also this sense of, and I know other people that are in recovery will immediately understand what I'm saying, is the feeling of being alone in a crowded room. And what alcohol did for me when I was younger, and I mean, normal, like, you know, teenager in high school and have a, you know, go, you know, on the weekend, have a beer or more.
And what it did is it worked. All of that kind of fear-based reaction to connection disappeared. I was able to ask the girl to dance. I was able to do the things that I wouldn't have encouraged to do unless I had a drink.