“We’re not just in a health crisis, but we are in a spiritual crisis, and those things are connected,” Kennedy told Laura Ingraham of Fox News. “And you know you have a whole generation of kids that feel alienated, dispossessed, and they are in an existential crisis. You know 77% of our kids can’t qualify for military service. There’s a purposelessness in their lives and no sense of usefulness or effectiveness or connectedness to their communities.”

Alienation and lack of purpose drive a chronic disease epidemic as well as nationwide depression and the “suicide” of alcoholism and drug addiction, Kennedy added.

“I think we have to address all of those things,” he said. “At the same time, we can’t just say we’re gonna make you physically healthy.”

“We all have to learn we need to get up in the morning and not think about, ‘What am I gonna do to make myself happy today?’ We have to get up and say, ‘What am I gonna do to make myself useful today…to be useful to my friends, to my family, to my community?’”

Connectivity stemming from doing good things and being of service is the path to happiness, Kennedy said.

The addiction community responded positively to Kennedy’s confirmation, and Kennedy, a recovered addict, believes the only way to overcome the “biological impulse” leading to addiction is with a spiritual realignment.”

“Alcoholism and addiction are diseases of isolation. People end up in jails, institutions, and dead or in bathrooms by themselves or insulated by secrets,” he said. “The process of getting sober is the process of reconnecting to community.”