Patrick Kennedy discusses rehab

“Unfortunately, I would have probably had to learn about my problem in the news,’’ he added.

Kennedy checked himself into Father Martin’s Ashley in Havre de Grace, Md., last month. He declined to say whether there was a particular incident involving substance abuse that led him to seek treatment at the facility.

He returned to Congress on Tuesday. He said he was glad to be back in Washington and had received a warm welcome from his colleagues.

“It’s just been very uplifting. I am thrilled to be back to work and to have the support of my constituents,’’ Kennedy said.

Kennedy has struggled with alcoholism, depression, and drug addiction for much of his life. He said he thought it was important to get help before being part of any embarrassing, headline-making accident or brush with the law in which he injured himself or someone else.

Three years ago, Kennedy entered a rehabilitation program at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota after an early-morning car crash outside the US Capitol. He agreed to a plea deal on a charge of driving under the influence of prescription drugs and received a year’s probation.

Kennedy, 41, who was elected to his eighth term in Congress last November, has also said he went to rehab as a teenager for an addiction to cocaine, and has since reported that he was being treated for depression and in recovery for alcoholism.

In 2000, he was accused of shoving an airport security guard in Los Angeles and trashing a yacht.

He is the son of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is battling brain cancer. The younger Kennedy would not say what role the stress over his father’s health had in his decision to seek addiction treatment.

But he called his father a “miracle of sorts’’ in defying medical expectations and said he was intimately involved from home in the current healthcare fight in Washington.