Cindy McCain, Who Recovered from Abusing Pills, Defends Hunter Biden from Attacks About His Addiction

Getty (2) From left: Cindy McCain and Hunter Biden

Cindy McCain on Wednesday spoke out to defend Hunter Biden on an issue she said went beyond politics: his history of — and recovery from — substance abuse and how it had become fodder for opponents and the media, something she knows well.

"This is not to be political and I don't mean it to be, but in the case of Hunter Biden, whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, I don't care," Sen. John McCain's widow said on the Skimm'd from the Couch podcast.

"But the fact of the matter [is], they have once again shamed a man who is struggling in addiction and the media has taken no sense of responsibility about helping him deal with this," Cindy, 66, continued. "Instead, they've made sure that he's a laughingstock of America, and I just find that wrong."

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The younger son of President Joe Biden, Hunter, 51, became a major target among conservatives during last year's campaign — both for his past business dealings and his personal problems, including his history of alcohol and crack addiction.

Hunter wrote in a recent memoir, sometimes in unflinching detail, about his descent into addiction.

New wife Melissa Cohen "nursed me back to health" after they met and married in early 2019, Hunter wrote in Beautiful Things.

The couple, who have a young son, now live in Los Angeles where Hunter says he is focused on new work as a painter. He was recently announced as a guest speaker at an upcoming course at Tulane University on the media, polarization and "fake news."

After Donald Trump referenced Hunter's addiction issues during one of the presidential debates last fall, now-President Biden said: "Like a lot of people we know at home, my son … had a drug problem. [Hunter] worked on it. He fixed it. And I'm proud of him."

Win McNamee/Getty; Kris Connor/WireImage President Joe Biden (left) and Hunter Biden

This week Cindy published a memoir of her own, Stronger, about her four-decade marriage with John, who died in 2018 from brain cancer.

The book recounts their successes and their setbacks, including Cindy's own addiction in the '90s to prescription opioids which began after a series of health issues and escalated when her husband became embroiled in the "Keating Five" banking scandal. (He was ultimately exonerated of wrongdoing after a congressional probe.)

"My experience with addiction is that it sneaks up on you," Cindy wrote in Stronger. "At first you have a reason for taking the drugs, as I did after the hysterectomy and the back surgery. But then the drugs begin to have such a powerful effect on your physical and mental state that it's hard to give them up."

"I told myself that I needed them for the back pain, but the secret truth was that I couldn't face those ['Keating Five'] hearings every day without some help," Cindy wrote. "The drugs blurred our awful reality just enough that I could sit in the hearing room for hours and pretend to be calm—rather than wanting to run screaming from the room."

She wrote in Stronger how she maintained a front for her husband, who spent work days in Washington, D.C., while she raised their family in Phoenix.

Eventually she began to use the aid group she founded, the American Voluntary Medical Team, to illicitly obtain more drugs.

But Cindy went "cold turkey" on the pills after her parents confronted her in 1992. She entered into a diversion program and was not charged.

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Dominic Valente/Getty Images Cindy McCain

"I was an addict. That's why [I took the pills]" Cindy has said. "I tell you, addiction is a very cunning enemy."

Appearing on the Skimm'd podcast this week, Cindy pushed back on what she said was the public and the media's tendency to "shame" and "humiliate" people with addiction rather than support them in treatment.

"Everyone who's listening to this today has addiction either in themselves or in their families. This is a common thread that runs through our country, and until we can treat it as a national health crisis, we're never going to get a handle on it," Cindy said, encouraging those who need it to seek help.

"I like to tell people: You have the strength in you to do it," she said, "but that first step is the hardest."