Sometimes it takes an addict: Betty Ford and Amy Winehouse
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Former First Lady Betty Ford, dead from natural causes at age 93. A full-on addict while First Lady, it wasn’t until sixteen months after Gerald Ford lost the 1976 presidential election that her family staged a professionally-aided intervention. Like any other addict, she was angry and resentful and later likened it to “hitting a wall; the wall is the disease.” Fortunately, the intervention was successful and she decided to scale the wall, while publicly announcing her addiction. She had become addicted after a doctor prescribed painkillers when she pinched a nerve in 1964 and later admitted to taking 20-30 pills a day, including “sleeping pills, pain pills, relaxer pills and the pills to counteract the side effects of other pills,” all of which she “loved.” She also spoke of her great liking for alcohol, which made her feel “warm,” and in conjunction with the potentiation of her in-house pharmacy groggy, unsteady, forgetful and late (or a no-show) to almost everything. Oddly, while her first husband was an alcoholic, she may not have triggered her own addiction until mid-life (she was 46 in 1964 and had been married to Gerald Ford since 1948). She realized if she could be an addict, anyone could be. Determined to help others, she started The Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California in 1982, where over 75,000 addicts have been treated, including a who’s who of celebrities, among them Elizabeth Taylor, Stevie Nicks (“Betty Ford saved my life”), Kelsey Grammer, Steven Tyler, Marlee Maitlin, Drew Barrymore, Robert Downey Jr., Mary Tyler Moore and Ali McGraw. She often introduced herself to patients, “Hi, I’m Betty. I’m an addict and an alcoholic.” We’ll miss you, Betty. Thanks for everything you’ve done and will continue to do, as your work lives on with your memory as its guide and inspiration.
And so long, too, to British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, who likely died of an overdose (less likely alcohol withdrawal, as her mother claims), at 27, putting her alongside many others whose fame and money enabled them to their deaths at 27, including Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. As psychiatrist Sally Satel said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “Managers insulate their famous (and profitable) clients from the consequences of their behavior and tolerate lapses for which the rest of us would be held accountable.” If only others held addicts accountable. Along with managers putting up with alcoholics’ misbehaviors, we can include friends, family, co-workers and, often, the law. In two words: enabling kills.