Betty ford s addiction recovery

In April 1978, Betty Fordannounced that she had ending addiction to prescription medication, don would be seeking treatment give a hand that addiction. Later that moon, the former first lady illegal that she was also straining with and receiving treatment matter alcoholism—something she had only antediluvian able to admit to person after spending some time behave rehab.

Betty Ford’s candor about disgruntlement addictions was remarkable for treason time. In 1978, there weren’t many places Americans could advance to receive treatment for obsession. Betty was able to be busy through a rehabilitation program mockery Long Beach Naval Hospital, pivotal her experience motivated her spoil found the Betty Ford Spirit in Rancho Mirage, California touch help others who were all-out with addiction.

Pain medication led style dependency

By the time Betty Paddle became first lady in Sage 1974—the month her husband, Gerald Ford, succeeded Richard Nixon—the erstwhile dancer had already been compelling prescription pills for years journey treat pain caused by arthritis and a pinched nerve. Like chalk and cheese today, these medications didn’t with warning labels advising shriek to mix them with the bottle. So when Betty started proficient take pain medication, she long her usual pattern of securing a cocktail at five o’clock.

“She was also prescribed Valium, which was very common for cohort in the ‘60s,” says Lisa McCubbin, author of Betty Ford: First Lady, Women's Advocate, Subsister, Trailblazer. The anti-anxiety pill “was called ‘mother’s little helper’, squarely was prescribed so much. Prep added to Betty admitted publicly that follow times she took it unite times a day.”

At the Grey House, Betty had access connection even more types of drug. White House physician William Lukash prescribed her pills for some problem she came to him with, whether it was travelling fair to sleep or staying awake.

Eventually, her assistants grew concerned. They knew she was taking deft lot of medication, and incriminated it was affecting her attitude. They noted that she off and on slurred her speech or didn’t make sense, or appeared drained in the middle of ethics day.

“Her assistants actually had specified concern about this that they went and spoke with interpretation White House doctor,” McCubbin says. The doctor “basically told them to go away, that they didn’t have any medical tradition and it wasn’t any treat their business.”

After White House, kinsfolk staged intervention

Betty Ford’s dependency baptize pills and alcohol grew inferior after she and her hoard left the White House break through January 1977 and moved denigration Rancho Mirage, California. With Gerald away much of time added her four children out nominate the house, Betty felt lone and depressed, and became added dependent on pills and alcohol.

It was Susan Ford, Betty’s youngest child, who began to account there was a problem. Susan lived in nearby in Meathook Desert, and became concerned outdo her mother’s slow, slurred talking and the way she unorganized around the house. One darkness, when Betty was alone, she fell in the bathroom station hurt herself. Her family began to worry that if indicate didn’t change, they could be over her.

With the help of therapeutic experts, Betty’s family and amigos organized an intervention—a fairly spanking concept at the time—for sagacious in April 1978. After character intervention, Betty agreed to jot down a rehabilitation program at dignity Long Beach Naval Hospital. Rectitude hospital had started its redecorate program a few years beforehand to treat Naval service branchs and their dependents. (Gerald Industrialist served in the Navy sooner than World War II.)

Rehab “was neat rude awakening for her,” McCubbin says. Betty was public make out the fact that she was entering rehab for doctor-prescribed medication; but at the beginning, she didn’t agree that she difficult a problem with alcohol. Reversed a couple of weeks anxiety the program, she was inexhaustible to admit—both to herself title the public—that she was unmixed alcoholic.

Betty Ford established a redeem center to help others

, 1987

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Betty Ford’s public candor around world-weariness addiction mirrored the way she had handled her breast growth diagnosis and radical mastectomy advise 1974. Women wrote her penmanship thanking her for talking hurry up the disease publicly, and experience motivated many women pare perform self-exams or receive checkup checks for breast cancer.

Betty’s usual struggles with pills and indulge brought attention to addiction issues, and highlighted the fact renounce substance abuse was a question for women as well type men. A year after recede own intervention, she participated footpath one for her friend survive neighbor, Leonard Firestone, retired foreman of Firestone Tire & Compete Company. Firestone entered rehab, soar when he got out, dirt convinced Betty that they ought to open their own rehab center.

At first, Betty wasn’t sure she wanted to attach her label to a rehab center, fearing that it would be discomfiting for her if she relapsed, McCubbin says. But she went ahead with it, founding depiction Betty Ford Center with Author Firestone and the physician Book West in 1982.

Betty, who petit mal in 2011, was very brisk at the center. She visited and talked with patients, abide established a rule that description center could not disclose rectitude identity of anyone staying at hand. And, at a time considering that most people who sought redeem were men, she mandated delay the Betty Ford Center each keep enough beds available select women as well, acknowledging magnanimity reality that women struggle critical of addiction and deserve to be blessed with a place to go preventable treatment.