The Trouble With Teddy

(4 of 5)

The tabloid Kennedy chases women half his age. In fact, in the past few years he has had several lengthy relationships with women who range in age from the mid-30s to 42 to a bit over 50. All are women of brains and professional stature, not bimbos.

For all that, stories abound of close encounters with Teddy in many different stages of intoxication. There are now famous tales of his drinking bouts in Capitol Hill restaurants, notably a favorite, La Brasserie, with Connecticut's Senator Christopher Dodd. Stories also abound of a drunken Kennedy making passes at women and, in one case, having sex with a woman lobbyist on the floor of a private room in La Brasserie. The latest reports from Palm Beach -- those involving Ted anyway -- suggest behavior that is merely a bit off: taking the younger generation out drinking in clubs in the middle of the night, maybe wandering around the house without his trousers.

At the start of every year Kennedy goes on a liquid diet to shed excess pounds. Aside from consomme and diet sodas, his meals consist of diet shakes. During the six-to-seven-week period, which usually ends on his birthday, Feb. 22, after a loss of 30 or 40 lbs., he avoids alcohol.

Kennedy does drink a lot when he is drinking. He has a considerable capacity for booze. But he also possesses amazing stamina and resiliency for a man his age. During an afternoon and evening, he may toss down many drinks (Scotch, wine, frozen daiquiris) -- sometimes, when he is on one of his sailboats. He may drink far into the evening. But with only a few hours' sleep, he is on time for his morning tennis game at the Cape (usually 9 a.m.) or for his business on the Hill in Washington.

The portrait of Ted Kennedy is not a coherent picture but has a shattered or kaleidoscopic quality. Or perhaps, like many public figures, he has arranged his life in compartments, some sealed off from the others. Kennedy's repeated drunkenness over a period of many years -- he was continually arrested for extremely reckless driving while a student at the University of Virginia Law School -- has raised in many minds the possibility, or in some the certainty, that he is an alcoholic.

Alcoholism is impossible to define with complete precision. The behavior and symptoms of alcoholics differ enormously. Some alcoholics need to drink daily and suffer when they do not. Others can interrupt their drinking for weeks or even months at a time and then binge.

Alcoholics usually have trouble stopping drinking when they start: after they begin, they persist until they are more or less drunk. Ted Kennedy sometimes has one drink, then goes about his business.

Alcoholism impairs work, health, social relationships, family relationships. Ultimately, as the disease progresses, it destroys more and more of the alcoholic's life, at an accelerating rate.

Kennedy is a hardworking and successful U.S. Senator with a busy schedule and a heavy load of intellectual labor that he apparently performs well. His mind is nimble and sharp, except when he has been drinking a lot. He is attentive to his enormous family and a considerable array of friends.