BETTY FORD

Mary Turner Pattiz, PhD
Chairman of the Board, The Betty Ford Center


Without Betty Ford’s courage and strength to be candid and open about her struggle with addictive disease, alcoholics and addicts today would still be living in shame and fear, too stigmatized to be able to ask for help. She lifted the veil of secrecy and changed the face of addiction treatment by making it not only OK, but desirable, and by being adamant about never giving up on a patient. Up until the last few years her presence at the Betty Ford Center was constant. She never hid in the Board Room, she was an active participant in groups and lectures and to those patients she was “Betty, alcoholic,” not Mrs. Ford. She was passionate about this work because recovery had given her life back to her and she was determined to give the same gift to everybody she met who needed help. At her funeral yesterday I heard a beautiful song with the words “if I’ve helped somebody, my life has been worthwhile.” How perfect, because Betty helped hundreds of thousands of people by speaking up for what she believed in. She was also passionate about promoting justice for all, and she was not afraid to speak out for women’s rights, gay rights, breast cancer research and treatment as well as drug and alcohol treatment, way before any of those things were “fashionable.” She will always be remembered for her compassion, vision and pioneering spirit. And, besides that, she was a wonderful and loving wife, mother and friend.

In her book she said something to the effect that she was “just an ordinary woman living in extraordinary times.” Betty Ford was anything but ordinary. My prayer is that she is finally back in the arms of the man she always called “my boyfriend”, her husband Jerry.