Hunter Biden reveals his darkest moments

The question was not lacking in any of Donald Trump’s actions during the last election campaign: “Where is Hunter?” Asked the then President of the United States.

The protagonist of these diatribes, Hunter Biden, son of outgoing President Joe Biden, has been to many places in recent years but does not plan to go anywhere, writes the young son of the current US president in a 272-page autobiographical book detailing his struggle against his alcohol addiction and crack.

The book will go on sale in US bookstores next Tuesday, it was reported.

He also defends the decisions that made him attack target rivals of his father.

“In the last five years alone, my 20 year marriage fell apart, I had a gun in my face several times, and at one point I let myself down living in hotels. shabby on the highway (…) scaring my family even more than me, ”he says without sparing the most sinister details of how he obtained and prepared the drug.

Biden Jr., a 51-year-old lawyer now retired in California, found solace in the painting alongside his new wife, Melissa Cohen, the person who helped him out of the well.

The book’s glowing title, “Beautiful Things” (something like “Beautiful Things”), is a tribute to the mantra that was repeated with her older brother Beau, who died in 2015 from brain cancer.

Accidents and fatalities

They both survived the car crash that killed their mother and little sister when they were four and two, respectively, and they always believed they would live to see beautiful things.

The episode marked them forever. “I don’t see this tragic moment as something that has necessarily resulted in addictive behaviors”, but sometimes “it allows me to better understand why I am feeling what I am feeling”, he writes, according to advanced excerpts. by the American press. .

He was eight years old when he first tried alcohol. It was 1978 and his father had been re-elected senator.

It’s not hard to imagine the shadow of the promising father and brother hovering over Hunter, still labeled as the rebellious son.

At 14, he began to drink excessively. Although he felt guilty for disappointing his father, who did not drink and encouraged his children to imitate him, “at the same time, he just wanted to do it again.”

The drink helped her overcome her insecurities. Alcohol and drugs accompanied him during his years at Georgetown and Yale, where he studied law.

He moved to Washington and started a family, but his addiction escalated. When his third daughter was born, his wife Kathleen forced him to undergo drug treatment.

His brother Beau – then Attorney General of Delaware, considered by his father to be his natural successor – accompanied him to his first meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous.

When his father joined Barack Obama’s campaign, Hunter had to quit his job as a lobbyist to avoid conflicts of interest.

He found himself drowned in a sea of debts and boarded a lifestyle he couldn’t afford. He relapsed into the drink.

The controversial contract in Ukraine

With a friend, he founded an international consulting firm whose steps again crossed those of his father, then vice-president. In 2014, he accepted a job at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. They were paying him tens of thousands of dollars a month. The signing drew criticism, but his father and Obama remained silent.

In the book, Hunter defends his job (helping the company comply with international anti-corruption laws), although he acknowledges that his greatest professional asset was his last name.

Having a Biden on his board was’ gold ‘for gas,’ a fuckin ‘way of saying Vladimir Putin’. Although he maintains that the controversy over his contract is “epic banality” and great hypocrisy on Trump’s part, he admits he would not accept the post he held during the worst phase again. of his drug addiction. He only left him when his father was already a presidential candidate.

With Beau’s death in 2015, their world fell apart. Her alcohol addiction worsened and her marriage fell apart. Someone offered him cocaine. From there it went to crack.

Living among drug addicts

He spent five months in Los Angeles living among drug addicts, thieves and crooks. “He smoked crack every 15 minutes,” he admits.

During this time, he had started a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow, Hallie. “We were desperately looking for the love we both had lost,” he writes.

Relationship failed. His parents’ attempts to get him into a drug rehab center as well. In 2019, he agreed to enter a clinic. His father hugged him and cried for a long time when he said goodbye. But as soon as he entered the center, he called a taxi and went to an airport hotel, where he spent two days smoking crack cocaine.

He returned to California. There, soon after, he met Melissa, a South African filmmaker who brought him home and gradually helped him put his life under control, give up alcohol and drugs.

The couple, who married less than a week after meeting, have a young boy named Beau. In November, he appeared with the family to celebrate Joe Biden’s election victory.

Faced with the imminent publication of the book, which leaves this Tuesday in bookstores, the White House referred to the statement released by Joe and Jill Biden in February: “We admire the strength and courage of our son Hunter to speak openly about his addictions. so that others can see themselves reflected in their journey and find hope ”.

The avant-garde. Special

CB