Denial and the “Hidden Alcoholic” – Betty F.

And we begin the second hour with portions of a rare interview that I did with former First Lady Betty Ford nearly 30 years ago. This was a couple of years after she went into recovery and a couple years before the start of the Betty Ford Treatment Center. Mrs. Ford talks about her hopes and her dreams for the Betty Fort Treatment Centre and she talks about going into recovery. I'd like to share that interview with you as part of our third year anniversary show. Your specific sobriety birthday is the first or the second of April or the third? Actually, I used April 7th because that was the date that I finished at midnight the last capsule of medication to bring me down off the drugs that I had been, which were prescription drugs. drugs. I was highly medicated, as you know, for a pinched nerve in my neck and an arthritic condition. And I was using alcohol on top of that. So the combination was, of course, bombastic. And this happened down here in the desert as opposed to in the White House? I had been on the prescription drugs for about 15 years, but they had been increased considerably since we left Washington, when we left Washington and came out here I think the adjustment of leaving our home there which the place we had established more or less as home for the last 28 years and it wasn't as if we left willingly we were defeated certainly for something that we were trying to win I mean this was the first time my husband had I had had anything but success in running for office so I think that probably leaving Washington which had been our home for 28 years was a big adjustment plus the the fact that we left under circumstances. It wasn't as if we chose to say we had planned to retire, but we hadn't planned to retire that way. Who has been the most significant person in your recovery? I suppose, you know, I hate to say because my family have been so important, but then they've always been very important to me. and the individuals, there's so many individuals that have helped me. I think I've been a significant factor in my recovery. I think it takes all of the parts put together that makes recovery possible. What was the hardest part of your early sobriety? Depends on what you refer to as sobrietry. If you mean by not drinking or not taking any mood-altering drugs such as the medications I had been on, it would certainly be the medications because I was still in pain. But I was assured that if I would continue to learn to live without them, I would find my health a great deal better better, and eventually a good deal of that pain would disappear. Dr. Persh told me this. I couldn't believe that could possibly be true. I'd been on medication for so long it didn't seem possible. I had always been a social drinker, and I had never seen any reason why just because I had to take a few pills I should not continue being the social drinker I had always been it was definitely not giving up I don't think it was giving up the drinking although certainly that was part of my lifestyle but because of the pain I think it would have been the medication are you uncomfortable at all now around alcohol certainly you're in social settings where there's alcohol not at all i'm very happy i don't have to be bothered with it i am what you call a grateful alcoholic which is a very strange terminology but it's a very nice feeling to be able to live very comfortably with no embarrassment whatsoever and when people offer you a drink or say what would you like to drink very comfortably say well I'll have a tonic and lime do people feel comfortable talking to you about your recovery social drinkers very definitely because I usually tend to be quite open and willing to bring it up and talk about it I know that there are so many people out there that are just waiting for someone to bring it up because they have somebody perhaps in their family that has maybe gone through the same thing or they wish would perhaps go through the same thing. When did you know you were starting to get in trouble with the alcohol and drugs? Well I think when you pass over that invisible line, it's almost impossible to know you're in trouble the disease itself is a disease of denial and even if you feel that you have I guess I knew because my family were beginning to make sure that the drinks that were given to me were not you know they were light drinks they They were making an effort to make sure, because if we were going to have drinks before dinner, I know they made an effort to make them mild. I'd been on medication all day and by the time I had a drink I got very groggy and very zombie-ish in extreme cases. What was your drinking pattern? In the afternoon of the cocktail hour at the end of the day? Yes, because actually Actually, I was on medication all day from the time I got up in the morning. And when I learned about my disease, which was duo addiction, I learned from the doctors that I probably didn't need to drink during the day because the mood-altering medications I was were in effect practically the same thing as alcohol. I had the same effect. MR. Did Operation Understanding, which was held in Washington in 1976 when the 52 people came out and publicly acknowledged their alcoholism, Dick Van Dyke, former Congressman Mills, Buzz Aldrin, did this have an impact at all on you? MS. I was very impressed, and I thought it was wonderful. wonderful. I was delighted, and I thought it was Harold Hughes, wasn't it? Yes, he was involved, yes. Senator Hughes involved with that, and very supportive. I knew Congressman Mills very well. Everybody was very surprised that he was alcoholic because he never drank at any of the parties. He didn't really go to parties. To me, the hidden alcoholic or the invisible alcoholic is very hard to detect and I think probably I was as much in that that classification, as some of the people like that. I never had to drink in heavy, for extended times or heavy amounts because, and I keep going back to this duo addiction, which I'm sure you understand some people don't the synergistic quality of the interaction of drugs and alcohol as dr. purse tells the story it isn't a matter of 2 plus 2 equals 4 but 2 plus two adds up to 22 when you're adding alcohol and drugs I probably helped a lot of people get into treatment this is This is not unusual for people who are alcoholic to, in the very beginning, even help others with their problem and still because of the denial of the disease, not see their own. I see this among people now who are still out there practicing, and they cannot see their own but they're very willing to help someone else it's a not unusual for someone to say well my heavens if I drank like that I certainly would give it up and yet the person themselves everybody else is aware they have a problem too I think I made sure I had lived a very structured life I had come come from a family that had set up certain mores as far as social activities were concerned. My drinking never interfered with my pattern of behavior in a way that would be offensive or noticeable, and I made sure that it didn't. What were your childhood or adolescent attitudes towards drinking? Oh, I wouldn't go out with boys in high school who I had went out. I remember I went out with a boy once and he drank beer at some party or dance and I had him take me home and I said don't ever come this way again because I did not want anything to do that may have been a reaction from the fact that I was by that time aware that my father had died of alcoholism which I didn't know until 16 when he did die of alcohol and I found out at the time of his death that he had been alcoholic and my brother in high school was certainly very alcoholically inclined I knew it caused a problem in our family and to me it was a very improper thing to do what impact do you feel your public recovery has had are you able to measure that oh i never even think about that because to me the importance is that i guess i'm selfish to know that my own recovery is such a wonderful thing not only for me but for our family. I'm delighted when I hear that it's helped somebody else and I was thrilled to death the other day when a woman came up to me and said that she had gone into recovery because of me and she had read my book and it had helped her recognize her own alcoholism she was a lovely lady young really in her she was more of a young woman than a lady she said she went to when she went to her first AA meeting she had her my book in her arms that is a very emotional thing to me yes it moves me to sort of chills down my spine I mean I'm I'm thrilled to death and sort of tears well up a little bit in my eyes because I know what it means to go through treatment, and I know how hard it is. No matter how you go into treatment, it's hard to face up to it. It's hard. It's very hard to know that you're not well. Well, I guess it's not too much difference from maybe being told you have cancer and they hope they can do something for you, but they don't know. It's tough. Are there special needs for a person in the public spotlight who goes through treatment? They probably need a longer period to recover because I think people who are in the spotlight and usually through that focus of attention have developed an image even within them own within their own selves and they build up a veneer that layer on layer protects them in that shell they protect themselves they have to protect themselves from the public and then it's much harder to get through to their feelings when you try to go through recovery mm-hmm when they go through recovery have you had any adverse reaction to your public acknowledgment to recover? Oh, yes. I even received telegrams to the effect when I first announced it that they thought it was very undignified and particularly for a former First Lady to air her problems in public and that sort of thing. There were times that I momentarily thought, I guess I made a mistake. I never should have been so honest about a problem that our family is having because you see with our family it wasn't just me having the problem we have been such a closely knit unit that if one of us has a problem, we all have a problem And that's probably one of the greatest things that could happen toward my recovery. Not everybody has that support system, so I was just so fortunate and much more so than most people. What role did Mr. Ford play as a spouse, and how about the rest of the family? Were they involved in a family program at Long Beach? MS. Yes, the family with the exception of our oldest son and his wife who were living on the east coast and they came for the intervention but they had to go back east during the week and then they returned the next weekend. But the rest of the family all participated in the program at Long Beach as family members. Do you feel that's essential in a person's recovery? I would think it was almost mandatory if it's possible. I'm sure there are some cases where physically it isn't possible, but in that case then I think a close friend or an employer or somebody in the family or close to the family should participate. Are there special needs for a woman alcoholic? As a woman, I feel that we have a very different set of values than men and consequently we usually relate better to each other in treatment. Personally, I feels that women need each other as much perhaps as men need to interrelate with other men And because there's a certain understanding there about values that's different. What advice could you give to a woman struggling with the disease? I suppose it depends. Immediately I begin to think, who is this woman? Is she married? Does she have a family? Or is she working or is she running a house? How is it affecting her? That's a very hard question when you just say a woman struggling with a disease. I guess I think probably the best recovery is found through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that is certainly the most successful recovery program that a person can go to. to. And I would recommend that. So your advice? I'm trying to give an overall. Sure. Would be then to call someone in AA, which is certainly the most readily available resource. Oh yes, I mean it's in your phone book and every city. They do call here a lot, you know, and they're drinking. And Ann doesn't put them through to me. Now if we get a call like that on a mastectomy they put them through to me but not if they're drinking because I get a lot of those what are some of the bright spots of recovery for you over the last four years I'm sure there have been many well the The last four years has been probably the most interesting and fascinating that maybe I've had. It's certainly been the most different because I have been very independent. My role as mother and wife has not been the predominant role. I've had the opportunity to develop my own individual personality to a great extent. And being allowed to do that, and with the children all grown in homes of their own, it has meant that I have sort of gone back into a career-oriented world where I am spending a great deal of time traveling working and trying to develop for one thing the Betty Ford Center at Eisenhower Hospital but it has given me a whole new outlook on life it's given me the um it's giving me new energies new health new family relationships of greater depth and greater love a greater spiritual program than i've ever had before that is part of a rare archival interview that i did with former first First Lady Mrs. Betty Ford back some 25 years ago prior to the start of the Betty Ford Treatment Center.