Watch: Hunter Biden Details Crack Use, "Destructive" Alcohol Addiction in Rare InterviewHunter Biden isn't hiding from his mistakes. Six months after former President Joe Biden pardoned his son's convictions on federal tax evasion and firearm charges, the 55-year-old shared rare insight into his previous struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction. "I don't know anybody who hasn't been affected by drugs and alcohol in a really significant way," Hunter told Channel 5 creator Andrew Callaghan in a sit-down interview released July 21. "While it's so universal, it's something we rarely talk about." And Hunter-dad to Naomi Biden, 31, Finnegan Biden, 23, Maisy Biden, 22, Navy Roberts, 6, and Beau Biden Jr., 5-admitted that his struggle with alcohol was just as difficult as his crack addiction. "I was drinking so much alcohol, almost a handle of vodka a day" Hunter added. "And alcohol is the most destructive drug not just to your body, but it puts you in more danger than any other drug I've ever experienced. And then you add on top of that the amount of crack I was using at the time, and crack cocaine in terms of your physical health is not as dangerous as the situation you put yourself in to be able to obtain it."readA Guide to President Joe Biden's Big Family After He Pardoned Son Hunter BidenWhile Hunter noted he's been sober since 2019, he shared he is still in the recovery process, adding, "I'm still appropriately paying the price for some, or trying to make amends for stuff that are personal that I still believe I need to make amends for." He also shared that all of his personal drug issues being aired out nationally in the last few years has helped him stay clean for good. "You get clean and sober and what ends up happening is you hold onto these secrets," Hunter-who opened up about his addiction struggles in his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things-explained. "The guilt kind of boils up and the only place you can talk about it is in a room full of virtual strangers, which is really helpful, but it doesn't relieve you from that awful feeling that 'I'm about to be found out.' Then you get triggered, and your brain tells you the only thing you know how to do to save yourself and the fastest way to save yourself is a drink or a drug. So you get caught in this loop."Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USAIndeed, Hunter noted his public controversies somewhat saved him from that cycle. "The favor that they did for me is that I don't have any more secrets," he added. "Now, not everything they say about me is true, but the things that people would be very embarrassed about, I've been very open about." And while a lot of his embarrassing moments are out in the open, he is more than happy to detail his path to sobriety, adding, "I am incredibly proud of that." For a deeper look into the Biden family, keep reading...
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFirst Lady Jill BidenWidowed at 30 when his first wife Neilia Hunter Biden was killed in a car crash along with their 13-month-old daughter Naomi in 1972, then-freshman Sen. Joe Biden focused on raising their sons, Beau Biden and Hunter Biden, and put romance on the back burner. Really, it wasn't even on the stove until Joe's younger brother Frank Biden gave him Jill Jacobs' phone number a few years later. "She gave me back my life," Joe wrote of finding love again with the future first lady in his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep. "She made me start to think my family might be whole again." Joe and Jill married on June 17, 1977.
Keith Bedford/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesSon Beau BidenThe president frequently invokes his late son, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, a former Army major and two-term Delaware attorney general who died of glioblastoma in 2015 at the age of 46. "Beau had a strict code of honor," Joe told the New York Times upon the release of his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad. "That may sound silly, but it's true. My dad had an expression: 'Never explain and never complain.' I never once heard Beau complain. Not once." He recalled a night toward the end of Beau's life when, Joe said, his son "had come face to face with his mortality. He watched me go through the loss of his mother and sister. And he didn't want me to turn inward. He didn't want me to give up on the robustness of life." In his eulogy for his brother, Hunter recalled his first memory of Beau: Waking up in the hospital next to him in 1972 after the car wreck that killed their mom and sister Speaking at at a National Guard/Army Reserve center named after his son the day before his inauguration in January 2020, Joe said how proud he was to be from Delaware. "And I am even more proud to be standing here doing this from the Major Beau Biden facility," he added. "Ladies and gentlemen, I only have one regret: He's not here. Because we should be introducing him as president." Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesBeau's Widow Hallie BidenBeau married Hallie Biden (née Olivere) in 2002. They welcomed daughter Natalie N