R.F.K. Jr. talks about God, faith, drugs and his demons

After he decided to kick heroin, the young Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to think about daily life in a different way.

Rather than trusting his willpower to do the right thing for a whole day, he began dividing each day into 40 or more decisions.

"When the alarm goes off in the morning, do I get immediately out of bed, or do I stay in bed for an extra 20 minutes with my indolent thoughts?" asked Kennedy, speaking to a recent Socrates in the City gathering. "When I reach in the closet and pull out a pair of blue jeans, and all those wire hangers fall on the ground, do I shut the door like I used to and say , 'I'm too much of a big shot, that's somebody else's job,' or do I go in there and clean up my own mess?"

After 14 years of addiction, Kennedy said he tried to act as if each decision was a moral test and God was watching.