History of The National Council

on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency

QUOTES OF THE DECADE

"This organization is neither `wet' nor `dry.' It shall not engage itself in

any activities designed to promote or prevent the sale or consumption of

alcoholic beverages."

Marty Mann, ca 1945.

"As long as alcoholism remains essentially a moral problem, it will be met

with the weapons of moral issues--condemnation and punishment or, at best,

shame, exclusion and ostracism."

Yvelin Gardner, NCADD acting executive director, 1950.

It was an idea whose time had come. Not long after Marty Mann became the first

woman to stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), she resolved to let America

know that alcoholism is a disease and that the alcoholic is a sick person. She

knew it would be an enormous undertaking that would need the support of an

established academic institution so she turned to her friends at Yale University

where E.M. Jellinek--father of the modern disease concept--and some of the most

progressive minds in the country had been working to transform alcoholism from a

moral problem into a public health issue. They recognized that Marty could

popularize their cause.

A NEW, RATIONAL APPROACH

Word spread quickly after Marty and a single secretary opened the New York

office of what she called the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism on

October 2, 1944. New York had nine newspapers in those days, and Marty used the

public relations skills she developed while working at Macy's department store

to make sure they all covered the event. When the wire services picked up the

story too, editorial pages were quick to applaud what they called a "new,

rational approach," and soon speaking requests began pouring in from all over

the country. AA, then barely a decade old, contributed to the demand for Marty

by publishing notices of her inspirational lecture tours in the Grapevine.

But Marty recognized from the very beginning that she could not change America's

attitudes about alcoholism all by herself. Her earliest goals included

establishing community organizations which would operate "information centers"

as well as procure beds in hospitals for alcoholics, whose disease was then more

likely to land them in jail. She even envisioned that these organizations would

eventually establish their own "rest centers" for the long-term treatment of

individuals who could not recover any other way from their disease.

"SPARK PLUG" FOR A NEW KIND OF HEALTH MOVEMENT

Marty's timing was perfect. The success of AA and the attention generated by the

release of "The Lost Weekend" in Hollywood created a steady appetite for

information about alcoholism from the public after World War II. Even government

and industry turned to the new organization for advice. The heavy volume of

speaking and writing requests, constant press interviews, thousands of inquiries

from the public and the task of developing and distributing educational

literature nearly overwhelmed the tiny organization which Marty described as the

"spark plug" for a new kind of health movement.

A decade later NCADD was strong enough to stand on its own, thanks to the

recruitment of a volunteer board of directors. It amicably had severed formal

ties to Yale to avoid being too closely identified with a single school of

thought about alcoholism. It also had changed its name to the National Committee

on Alcoholism and acquired "NCA," the acronym that would identify it for the

next forty years.

Marty and the board had good reason to celebrate NCADD's tenth anniversary. More

than 50 communities in 27 states had established Affiliates to continue NCADD's

work at the local level. State governments had begun developing alcoholism

programs with tax dollars instead of relying on punitive sanctions to deal with

the problem. The disease concept was beginning to take root among the medical

community. And most importantly, alcoholics had better access to care than ever

before. When Marty founded NCADD, fewer than 100 general hospitals accepted

acute cases of alcoholism. By 1953, 3,000 hospitals offered such care. NCADD was

clearly on a roll. It also was broke.

1944 - 1953 | 1954 - 1963 | 1964 - 1973 | 1974 - 1983 | 1984 - 1993

QUOTES OF THE DECADE

"Ultimately, then, it is The Individual to whom we address our efforts, our

hopes, our prayers. It is toward The Individual's recovery and happiness and

usefulness to society that our organizational efforts, our education

campaigns, our research endeavors are directed."

Marty Mann, executive director, 1958.

"In what other health area is it necessary to work, not only with the

medical profession and hospitals, but also with schools, colleges, judges,

law enforcement agencies, social agencies, the clergy, industry, unions, as

well as with federal, state and municipal governments?"

R. Brinkley Smithers, president, 1961.

Like most young organizations, NCADD struggled with finding enough money to

accomplish the work it set out to do. Despite a 1957 Roper poll showing that 58%

of the nation viewed alcoholism as a disease (compared to just six per cent in

1943), stigma still made fund raising a difficult proposition. Although

Affiliates originally were expected to give ten per cent of the money they

raised locally to support NCADD, this proved to be an unreliable base of

financial support.

But NCADD's prospects improved greatly with the election of R. Brinkley Smithers

to the board of directors in 1954. Brink, as he was known, had just begun his

recovery from alcoholism when he met NCADD's Yvelin Gardner, who was the first

person ever to tell him that he suffered from a disease. That was news to Brink,

who then dedicated the rest of his life to making this as widely known as

possible. The alcoholism movement--and NCADD in particular--had found its

greatest patron.

BRINK "ON BOARD"

With Brink "on board," NCADD added a dozen staff members and expanded the board

of directors to 60 volunteers who served on seven different committees. A direct

service program for New York City began as a pilot project through the national

office. The annual meeting, begun in 1952, became a three-day conference

attended by as many as a thousand people. The Dwight Anderson Memorial Library,

the earliest reference library on alcoholism of its kind, was established and

named for NCADD's first board member. In addition to providing consulting

services to increasing numbers of companies concerned about the impact of

alcoholism on industry, NCADD also forged productive working relationships with

many other health, labor, clergy and women's organizations.

Though Marty's charisma, writing and PR skills already had given NCADD a high

public profile--in the days before television the huge movie audience learned

about it in a March of Time newsreel--Brink's financial resources allowed NCADD

to thrive throughout the 50s and early 60s. This period also marked NCADD's

full-time entry into the medical and research field with the appointment of Ruth

Fox, MD to the staff in 1959. Through her evaluations of new treatment methods

and professional education programs, NCADD legitimized its role as a public

health organization. "AMERICA'S AGENCY FOR ALCOHOLISM"

Recognition from the federal government quickly followed. During NCADD's 15th

anniversary dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, the Secretary

of Health, Education and Welfare called NCADD "America's agency for alcoholism."

This official embrace soon translated into federal funding for research

projects, including a groundbreaking statistical analysis of the socio-cultural,

economic and psychological characteristics of alcoholics.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first of three presidents to hail Alcoholism

Information Week, a new project launched by NCADD. It offered an opportunity to

capitalize on television exposure which by 1960 had long replaced the movies and

radio as America's favorite entertainment medium. Pat Boone, Art Carney,

Jonathan Winters and Shirley Jones were among the early celebrities to join

Marty Mann in recording TV spots to promote the campaign. NCADD also assisted

the producers of the Armstrong Circle Theater and the Alfred Hitchcock show in

developing early dramatic programs that sympathetically explored the subject of

alcoholism. These productions reached vast new audiences in their living rooms

and gave NCADD an incredibly influential audience for its message.

As NCADD's second decade drew to a close, things had changed so much that the

Washington, DC Affiliate and the local American Civil Liberties Union were

confident enough to challenge in court the constitutionality of laws that

treated alcoholics who were apprehended for public drunkenness as criminals.

NCADD had come of age.

1944 - 1953 | 1954 - 1963 | 1964 - 1973 | 1974 - 1983 | 1984 - 1993

QUOTES OF THE DECADE

"Long characterized as a social beverage, alcohol, as a result of the

hysteria over drug abuse in America, was receiving more and more attention

as the most dangerous and most widely mis-used drug of all. It would be

ironic, however, if the fight against alcoholism were now allowed to become

obscured by being relegated to the position of just another drug problem."

Luther A. Cloud, president and William W. Moore, Jr., executive director,

1970.

"We alcoholic women are on the best-dressed list, the most- admired list

year after year, we are the social butterflies, the wittier darlings of the

"in" group. We hold office, we sit as judges, we have large families, we

teach Sunday school, we offer you coffee, tea, or milk on an airplane, and

we administer vital sera into your veins."

Mercedes McCambridge, honorary chair, 1971.

While social change swept through America, NCADD also went through a period of

transition that would have a profound affect on the organization. The offices

moved downtown from their original location in upper Manhattan. Affiliates, who

started their own professional association, were given a stronger voice with the

creation of the delegate assembly where policies were debated and national board

members were elected. Marty Mann stepped down as executive director in 1967 to

become founder consultant and concentrate on her world-wide speaking

engagements.

REACHING OUT TO THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY

With the appointment of Frank Seixas, MD as medical director in 1969, NCADD put

a much greater emphasis on educating the medical community. More than 30 medical

schools attended a training conference hosted by NCADD and formal criteria for

the diagnosis of alcoholism were developed. An annual medical/scientific

conference was convened and by 1973 the physicians comprising the membership of

what is now the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) had voted to

become a component of NCADD.

Both an advertising and a public relations agency were brought in to

professionalize the communications efforts of NCADD. This resulted in NCADD's

first coordinated use of the print, radio and television media with the creation

of a PSA campaign called "The Silent Treatment Is the Worst Treatment for the

Disease of Alcoholism." Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge bravely

assumed the highly visible role of NCADD's first honorary chair and publicized

NCADD's message in an extraordinarily personal way.

INCREASING DEMAND FOR EMPLOYEE ALCOHOLISM PROGRAMS

Corporate America had awakened to the fact that alcoholism in the work force

cost employers substantial sums and by 1964, 205 companies--up from 75 just a

few years earlier--turned to NCADD for advice in developing employee alcoholism

programs (EAPs). As the leader in this burgeoning movement, NCADD helped form a

professional society of executives and consultants in this field which met for

the first time in 1971.

The federal government also was taking alcoholism more seriously than it ever

had before. By 1965 Congress began holding hearings about the need to establish

a federal agency to deal exclusively with the problems caused by alcoholism. A

year later, around the time that President Johnson appointed Marty Mann to the

first national advisory commission on alcoholism, the Washington, DC Affiliate

won a precedent-setting legal victory when two federal courts recognized

alcoholism as a disease.

HERO IN WASHINGTON

As Washington quickly became the center of the action, a heroic figure emerged.

Harold Hughes, a young Democratic senator from Iowa, had consistently

acknowledged his recovery from alcoholism while campaigning for public office.

As chairman of a senate subcommittee on alcoholism and narcotics, he sponsored a

bill that would earn him NCADD's highest honor, the Gold Key Award, and forever

alter the alcoholism movement.

Congress passed the Hughes Act in 1970, a year after NCADD's 25th anniversary.

The legislation established the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and

Alcoholism (NIAAA). United Press International called passage of the Hughes Act

a "signal victory" for groups such as NCADD. It also provided the impetus for

the NCADD board to form its first public policy committee and to open an office

in Washington, DC.

Now NCADD had a permanent voice in the nation's capitol.

1944 - 1953 | 1954 - 1963 | 1964 - 1973 | 1974 - 1983 | 1984 - 1993

QUOTES OF THE DECADE

"NCA[DD] has also maintained its advocacy role--a role that is positive. It

is for the recovery of those who have the disease of alcoholism, and for the

mitigation of its damage to our society. It is for all agencies and programs

that contribute to these ends. NCA[DD] is up front in working to change

attitudes, laws, and practices that work against positive results."

Thomas P. Pike, chairman, 1977.

"There are an estimated one million recovered alcoholics in this country.

Many of these found sobriety through NCA[DD] and its Affiliates, but only a

small number are NCA[DD] contributors. If each recovered alcoholic gave only

$1 per year and each of ninety million users of alcoholic beverages

contributed the price of a single drink to NCA[DD], we would be in a

position to bring this disease under control."

Gordon L. Steinhauer, chairman and Luther A. Cloud, MD, president, 1978.

When NCADD turned 30, public interest in alcoholism was at an all-time high.

Government, industry, labor and medicine all had acknowledged its terrible toll

on American society and the combination of these forces provided NCADD with what

appeared to be unlimited opportunities for major expansion.

With its charge to develop and conduct comprehensive health, education,

training, research and planning programs in the areas of prevention and

treatment of alcoholism, NIAAA, the "new kid on the block," logically began

contracting with NCADD for assistance. As a result, in 1976 NCADD's budget

peaked at $3.4 million, nearly five times what it had been before passage of the

Hughes Act. Government funding accounted for more than 75% of the budget.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BOOSTS MARTY'S VISION

This provided seed money for state voluntary alcoholism associations which in

turn helped organize local NCADD Affiliates. Marty, who died at the age of 75 in

1980, lived long enough to see how the government had boosted her early vision:

the number of Affiliates had risen to an all-time high of 223 and their advocacy

efforts had helped to bring to at least 23 the number of states who mandated

insurance coverage for alcoholism treatment.

The federal government also facilitated rapid growth in the EAP movement. Eleven

years of NCADD campaigning culminated in 1974 with AFL-CIO president George

Meany and General Motors director James M. Roche agreeing to chair NCADD's

all-star labor management committee. When NIAAA provided NCADD with funding to

establish task forces in ten major cities a year later, NCADD published the

first labor-approved EAP guidelines. By the end of the 70s, employees had access

to 5,000 EAP programs.

OPERATION UNDERSTANDING

NCADD made its own unique contribution to the celebration of the nation's

bicentennial with "Operation Understanding." This dramatic and emotional event

brought together more than 50 well-known and widely respected figures--including

astronaut "Buzz" Aldrin, actor Dick Van Dyke and congressman Wilbur Mills--to a

press conference in Washington, DC where they announced their recovery from

alcoholism. Newsweek later called it of the most important news stories of the

70s.

But not long after NCADD had perhaps its greatest triumph in reducing stigma,

the board was forced to face an extremely unpleasant reality. Though the

Washington office effectively had used the collective power of NCADD Affiliates

to rally constituent support for NIAAA appropriations, it also was clear that in

a souring economy government money would not last forever. In 1977, the board

resolved to rely only on private funds in the future and once again Brink was

there to ease the transition.

NEW OPENNESS ABOUT RECOVERY

Fortunately, the tremendous reduction in stigma--symbolically affirmed when the

U.S. Postal service issued an alcoholism stamp--had fostered social attitudes

favorable to special events that could raise both funds and awareness. These

included the Gordon McCrae Celebrity Golf Classic, an annual NCADD-sponsored

tournament, which was attended by President and Mrs. Betty Ford in 1980. The new

openness about recovery from alcoholism also meant that the Advertising Council

finally accepted NCADD as a client and that insurance executive James S. Kemper,

Jr., actor Jason Robards and baseball pitcher Bob Welch would declare "I'm

Living Proof You Don't Have to Die for a Drink" in a hugely popular PSA

campaign.

The "medicalization" of alcoholism also was in full swing. In 1975, NCADD had

funded a fetal alcohol study group which urged researchers to standardize

techniques in their investigation of this recently discovered phenomenon. NCADD

also offered homes to both the National Nurses Society on Addiction and the

Research Society on Alcoholism which, with ASAM, began publishing Alcoholism:

Clinical and Experimental Research. Attendance at the annual medical/scientific

conference had swelled to more than a thousand, and NCADD and ASAM jointly

developed their own definition of alcoholism in 1976.

Meanwhile a relatively new NCADD office had crafted an enormously

influential--and radical--position statement that would keep the Washington

office in particular very, very busy for the next decade.

The era of prevention had dawned at NCADD.

1944 - 1953 | 1954 - 1963 | 1964 - 1973 | 1974 - 1983 | 1984 - 1993

QUOTES OF THE DECADE

"Our courageous commitment to education, public information and innovative

prevention policies, implemented through support for enlightened public

policies concerning alcohol, have won us widespread respect within the field

of alcoholism and a growing list of new friends in other fields eager to

share in our efforts to provide a safer, healthier world for our children

and our children's children."

Wheelock Whitney, chairman and Martha B. Baker, president, 1984.

"If each one of us whose life has been touched by alcoholism--whether we be

husband, wife, father, mother, daughter, son, brother or sister--writes a

letter or makes a phone call to a member of Congress, we finally may break

through the stigma that still influences policy decisions regarding one of

our most serious public health problems."

Harold Hood, chairman, 1992.

As NCADD entered its fifth decade, it seemed that many of Marty's early goals

had been achieved. 80% of the American public understood that alcoholism is a

disease, the majority of the middle class had access to treatment through

private health insurance and attendance at self-help groups had soared.

Membership in ASAM, which began certifying physicians specializing in addiction

medicine, had grown so large by 1984 that it no longer made sense to remain

under NCADD's umbrella. However, the two groups continued to meet together

annually until 1991 and today are represented on each other's boards.

Different kinds of problems now confronted NCADD and an increasingly fragmented

field. When it became clear that younger alcoholics were commonly addicted to

more than one substance, NCADD expanded its mission to include other drugs in

1987, adding Drug Dependence to its name in 1990 to reflect this change. And

with kids using alcohol at earlier ages and in greater numbers than ever before,

NCADD gradually shifted its focus to preventing alcohol-related problems through

educational efforts targeted at youth and by addressing environmental factors

that shaped public attitudes about drinking.

AFFILIATES PROVIDE COMMUNITIES WITH PREVENTION PROGRAMS

The BABES program, conceived by the Detroit Affiliate and one of the first to be

honored with NCADD's new prevention awards, spread quickly around the country

during the 80s. Teaching lessons in story form and using age-appropriate

materials--including puppets and videos--BABES, like many other innovative

programs developed by NCADD Affiliates, gave communities the basic information

and tools to take prevention into their own hands.

At the national level, President Reagan signed legislation in 1984 that resulted

in a minimum drinking age of 21, just two years after NCADD had outlined this

goal in its controversial prevention position statement. By 1990, NCADD would

see two more of its prevention strategies implemented at the federal level:

excise taxes were raised on beer and wine for the first time in almost 30 years

and warning labels began appearing on alcoholic beverage containers.

PREVENTION EMPHASIS ATTRACTS NEW SUPPORT

NCADD's emphasis on prevention--also apparent in a project with Weekly Reader

for young schoolchildren and "Say No. And Say Yes To Your Life," a new Ad

Council campaign featuring a rap star as its spokesman--attracted new donors,

including Leonard Firestone, Laurance Rockefeller and Joan Kroc. Their gifts

allowed NCADD to set general support fundraising records in both 1986 and 1987.

Women's issues also came to the forefront of NCADD's agenda during the 80s. A

grant from the Ford Foundation in 1987 made possible an important study of

publicly funded women's alcoholism programs. This put NCADD in a position to

lead a coalition to demand improved access to treatment for alcohol and other

drug dependent women and their children. And what today is known as Alcohol- and

Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Awareness Week was initiated by a joint

congressional resolution signed by President Reagan in 1984.

Alcohol Awareness Month, NCADD's other major awareness program--which had

evolved from Alcohol Information Week and was now kicked off by Alcohol-Free

Weekend--drew support in 1990 from Surgeon General Antonia Novello, MD who

agreed to serve as honorary chair, and the federal Center for Substance Abuse

Prevention. Dr. Novello urged the nation "to draw the line against underage

drinking" and hundreds of grassroots group across the country participated in

the greatly expanded campaign with NCADD-developed materials distributed by the

government.

HOPE-LINE REACHES LARGE AUDIENCE

Improving technology enabled NCADD to reach even larger audiences with its

message. Since NCADD inaugurated its toll-free service during the Betty Ford

Story on ABC-TV in 1987, more than 250,000 Americans have called for information

about alcoholism and referral to local services through NCADD Affiliates. Both

the broadcast and print media--from "Good Morning America" to "Dear Abby"--have

publicized the service dozens of times. A 1990 Ad Council campaign incorporated

it and urged the "significant others" of teenagers with drinking problems to

call NCADD's Hope Line for help.

But even as it made progress in preventing alcoholism and other drug addictions,

NCADD began facing a critical challenge in the 90s: a national health care

crisis all but eliminated insurance coverage for the treatment of these

diseases.