Addiction, Treatment and Recovery

Just hours after we learned that President Gerald Ford had died, patients and staff gathered in the Firestone Auditorium on the Betty Ford Center campus, and I had the honor to share some reflections on a person all of us both respected and loved.

Gerald Ford was, of course, president during tumultuous times. The Vietnam War. Terrible inflation. The aftermath of Watergate. A country bitterly divided.

One of his proudest moments occurred long after he left the White House. It was when Caroline Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy awarded him the Profile in Courage Award at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston. They cited President Ford’s wisdom and courage in pardoning Richard Nixon. At the time President Ford was vilified for making that tough decision. History, however, proved him right. As always, President Ford chose to do the right thing, no matter the political or personal consequences.

In 1978, President Ford and Susan, joined by the three sons, planned and implemented a formal intervention with Mrs. Ford. He often talked to me about the glares he received during the intervention from his loving but “under attack” wife.

President Ford accompanied his wife to the Long Beach Naval Hospital where she admitted herself for treatment and participated in a rudimentary family program. He attended Al-Anon. He supported his wife’s decision to seek help and to go public about her decision. Shortly after Mrs. Ford returned home, he decided to give up alcohol for good. He said it was much more important to support Betty than to have an occasional drink.

In 1981, President Ford stood off to the side when Mrs. Ford and Ambassador Leonard Firestone broke ground for the Betty Ford Center. In October of 1982 he again stayed out of the spotlight during the official opening – even though he had helped raise the funds needed to build the Betty Ford Center.

He supported her 100 percent – but he wanted this to be her place.

Mrs. Ford originally did not want to put her name on this Center. She felt that as a woman alcoholic new in recovery it maybe wasn’t completely appropriate to broadcast that fact. But President Ford and Leonard Firestone convinced her that having her name on the shingle would represent a “Beacon of Hope” for every woman and man who needed help with their disease. She eventually agreed.

Photographs taken here over our first 25 years seldom include President Ford. Yet he was the silent partner at Betty’s side. From the beginning, Mrs. Ford would take home financial statements for him to review. It was not unusual for me to get a phone call from the President, “John, can you tell me more about this figure on page 3, line 17…”

In 1994, when Mrs. Ford formed a Chairman’s Council, she asked her husband to serve on it. Which he did, with distinction. No one who attended those Council meetings will forget his keen intelligence and his probing questions.

President Ford was a humble, modest man. He was truly a man of the Midwest. I remember one August morning when I was a guest at their home in Colorado. It was early in the morning. There he was, in his pajamas and robe, eating a bowl of cereal, watching the British Open on TV.

“John,” he said, “grab a bowl and help yourself to Rice Krispies and Cheerios, and join me for the golf.”

President Ford was always amazed and impressed that the Betty Ford Center became so well known and was able to help so many tens of thousands of people. He was one proud father in January 2005 when Mrs. Ford recommended to the Board that their daughter Susan be elected Chairman, to succeed her.

One of my fondest memories of President Gerald R. Ford is our Memorial Day picnics for patients and staff. The tradition is that the leadership team barbecues the beef patties and hot dogs and serves the patients and staff.

When he was in town, President Ford came to those picnics. Not to observe. Not to eat. To participate.

Who was that friendly, engaging guy in charge of taking and fulfilling soda orders? That guy who had a kind word for every single person at the picnic?

The 38^th President of the United States of America. That’s who.

We loved him. And we miss him.

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