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Vital Speeches, Feb’ 1′ 1947

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

by MRS. MARTY MANN, New York, N.Y.

Executive Director, National Committee for Education of Alcoholism, Sponsored by the Yale Plan for Alcohol Studies

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Economic terrible and growing problem. We are not Club of Detroit and that wider radio audience dealing here with a minor problem. We are whom I cannot see: I stand before you here dealing with what an Assistant Surgeon General today on behalf of two groups. One group is of the United States Public Health Service has made of free people, free because they have rightly called “Our greatest unsolved public knowledge. The other group is made up of health problem.” lt is not unsolved because it is prisoners, prisoners of their condition, held a new problem. lndeed, it has been with us from prisoners by ignorance and fear. the beginning of time. lt remains unsolved The first group is that whom I officially because it is a problem we have never faced. lt represent, the National Committee for Education is something we have never even discussed. on Alcoholism, made up of men and women of The majority of people in their ignorance and science and medicine of the clergy and of the fear scarcely admit of its existence. Alcoholism arts, of business and of public life who are has for too long been a taboo subject; just as aware of the nature of this problem and who are tuberculosis used to be forty years ago. lt has determined to do something about it. been hidden under a dark cloud of stigma, made They have done me the honor of darker by fear of that stigma. Any child can tell appointing me Executive Director of that group you that no problem can be solved by refusing to and have made me the spokesman for their recognize its existence. Equally true is the fact program. that no problem can be solved while unaware of The other group has not appointed me. its nature. The other group is not organized. lt frequently Many groups have been concerned for does not know there is a group. many years with the beverage alcohol. Millions These prisoners that I spoke of are the of words spoken and written on behalf of alcoholics of America, three million strong. hundreds of organizations have dealt with this. Many of them are unaware of their own ln the last analysis this concern has resolved condition; are unaware of its nature; and are itself into a violent tug of war between the “wets” unaware that there is anything whatsoever to do and the “drys.” ln that tug of war it has been said about it. that the alcoholic has been the rope – and that They did not need to aPPoint men; I rope has become badly frayed. No organization belong to that group. I myself shared their until very recently has concerned itself with the condition of being a prisoner until the truth made plight of the alcoholic or the nature of his me free. dilemma. That is where the National Committee First, I wish to speak to you on behalf of comes in. the National Committee for Education on The National Committee is not Alcoholism. Later, I am going to speak to you on concerned with the problem of beverage alcohol. behalf of that other group who needs our help. We take no side in that ancient tug of war. We The National Committee for Education state flatly in fact that this organization, the on Alcoholism is exactly what its name implies. National Committee for Education on Alcoholism Our objectives are implicit in that title. We are and all of its affiliated Committees – eighteen of interested solely in giving the public the true them at this date – are neither “wet” nor “dry.” facts about alcoholism, its nature and treatment, We go fu(her. We state that this organization in order that they may have the weapons of shall not concern itself in any activities designed knowledge with which to effect a solution of this to promote or prevent the sale or consumption of

alcoholic beverages. Our concern is with a America a change in their actions must result. disease called alcoholism and its victims, those We believe that repetition will help to implant hapless, suffering human beings who are known these concepts in the mind of the public, and so as alcoholics. they are embodied – in fact, they form the basis We recognize, as did others concerned of every talk that is given on behalf of the with the problem of alcoholism, that practically National Committee. The three concepts are as nothing was known by the general public of this follows: disease. We realize that because of this lack of One, Alcoholism is a disease and the knowledge, the public attitude ranged from utter alcoholic is a sick person. ignorance, through apathy and indifference, up Two, the alcoholic can be helped and is to prejudice and active antagonism. The public worth helping. attitude reflects not only a total lack of factual Three, alcoholism is a public health knowledge, but the presence of a mass of problem and therefore, a public responsibility. misinformation and falsehoods. Out of this Perhaps these do not appear attitude has grown the type of treatment which revolutionary on the surface, but stop and think the citizens of these United States have given of the associations we all have been taught to and still give to that segment of the population – have with the words disease and sickness. We their helpless fellow citizens – who suffer from know, for instance, that disease is no respecter this illness. I think you all know what that of persons; it can strike anywhere, high or low, treatment is as well as I do. lt is hostile, rich or poor, men or women. We do not punish contemptuous, and punitive. lt is completely sick people for being sick; we treat them. We go without understanding and often without pity. to great lengths to establish treatment facilities ln most cities in this country there is and they are the pride of our communities. We nowhere to put the alcoholic who is in the throes do not blame sick people for their condition, of this deadly malady, excepting the local jail. even when, as often happens, it is brought on by We, as a nation, are not wont to treat our sick in ignorance or carelessness or both. Once they this fashion. We are not cruel and barbarous. are sick, however this came about, we want We are not medieval. We pride ourselves on them to have the kind of treatment that will help being enlightened, and we are, on the whole, a them to get well. lt would never occur to us to kind people. And yet to a great body of very sick put a man with malaria in jail – as if to say to him, human beings we offer only punishment for their “you see what this does to you – now let that be illness. We behave as if we were still in the a lesson to you and don’t let it happen again.” Middle Ages. We know that he is sick, he is rarely capable of This situation must be changed. lt is our self-treatment. We know that he needs help – to belief that it will be changed when the public is overcome his illness. Put these simple placed in possession of the facts. That is the associations beside our behavior toward those challenging task which we have accepted. We sick people who are sick with alcoholism and wished to make these facts as simple and you will see how revolutionary that concept is. understandable as possible that they might be The fact that alcoholism is a disease has understood by every man, woman and child in been known to science for over 150 years. Many this country. In order to do that, we adopted great Americans of the last century recognized three simple concepts which are printed on each this fact, although it was an English doctor who piece of our literature, and which our speakers wrote the first modern treatise on the diagnosis reiterate over and over again throughout the and treatment of the disease of alcoholism in cities of this land. They are simple, these 1778. concepts, but they are revolutionary in content., Our own Connecticut Medical Society for they embody an attitude which is exactly the recognized alcoholism as a disease requiring opposite to that shown by our actions in the special treatment and hospitals for that past, and I am afraid I must add, in the present. treatment in a resolution it presented to the We believe that when these concepts are Connecticut State Legislature in 1830. I myself accepted into the thinking of the people of was ashamed when I learned these things, and

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yet it was not my fault, for I had never been sort. Yet today they are assets. They can be taught any such facts. Just the same, it is seen and they are known for their curious, is it not, that scientific facts well known accomplishments throughout the length and to science over such a long period should never breadth of the land. They are the living proof of have become common knowledge? The normal the second concept. No one any longer can say gap, they tell me, between a scientific discovery as I myself once said and as we all were taught, and its acceptance by the public, before which of that the drunkard is a bum for whom there is no course, it cannot be of real use, is twenty years. hope because there is something vital missing in Why should this gap be so extended? We are him – he has no willpower, no character – or he late in starting, but we are trying desperately to would not let himself get that way. These people bridge that gap as speedily and as effectively as know that they have a disease of which they possibly now. This, in short, is our primary need be no more ashamed than if they objective. happened to have diabetes or T.B. On the Our second concept, that the alcoholic contrary, they can be proud of the fact that in can be helped and is worth helping is a spite of suffering from a progressive and often statement that could not have been made even fatal malady for which there is no absolute cure, ten years ago from a public platform, because it they have learned how to arrest their illness so could not have been proved. Although there that they can lead normal, healthy, happy lives. have always been alcoholics who got well by Our last concept, that this is a public one means or another and walked among us as health problem and therefore, a public normal human beings, they dared not mention responsibility, follows inevitably upon what the nature of their illness had been. The acceptance of the other two. This is our job, stigma which had been attached to alcoholism yours and mine, as citizens and as human was so great that if people knew the truth, these beings. We, the people, create public attitudes recovered alcoholics might have jeopardized and we can change them. Our first job is to their whole future – their jobs, their family change this attitude, for until that is done relationships, their places in society, everything alcoholics and their families will not seek help. that makes life most dear. Not until the creation The majority of the estimated 3,000,000 of Alcoholics Anonymous twelve years ago was alcoholics in this country fall into the category of there any change in the situation. what I call the hidden alcoholic. These are Then for the first time, alcoholics began usually people who have some family left, and to get well in numbers. They were banded that family will go to any lengths to see that no together in groups and together they had the one knows that the stigma of alcoholism has strength to face the hostile world and to talk of struck in their midst. ln their opinion, the shame this illness from which they had recovered. They and degradation of having this fact become talked so that other alcoholics might learn the common knowledge far outweighs the welfare of truth about their condition, and seek help. Their the alcoholic. The alcoholic is “protected,” voices were heard. Today, Alcoholics hidden from view, but actually he is prevented Anonymous numbers more than 30,000 active from getting help. Not until the stigma is members; well and happy people; prosperous removed and alcoholism is discussed as freely citizens who have returned to their places in and openly as any other illness, will these their communities; who are assets – no longer people dare to seek help. We must remove this liabilities. These people make good citizens – stigma if we are to save thousands from these same people, who a few years ago were a unnecessary deaths. stone around the neck of everyone who knew But we must do more than this, for in them; A care and a burden and a terrible cost to many cases there will be no facilities for the themselves, their families, their employers and treatment of some of these people. All of them their communities. Liabilities in every sense, may not be suitable for A.A. All of them may not they represented not only appalling economic be willing or ready to accept that particular waste, but also the most terrible human waste; method of treatment, and there are other heartbreak, broken homes and tragedies of very methods which have also helped alcoholics back

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to normal life; psychiatry, lay therapy, the say we know because we already have eighteen conditioned reflex treatment. Unfortunately the such affiliated committees operating in eighteen last three are both long and expensive – too cities throughout the country, and the progress often beyond the reach of the alcoholic and his they report is more than encouraging. lt has family. convinced us that we can solve the problem of Nevertheless each method has its record alcoholism in America – and we will. of success. None of these methods are infallible. Now I can go back to my regular method And in this illness it has been found that on of speaking. I am strictly an extemporaneous occasion a combination of several methods of speaker; I am not used to reading a speech; but treatment will sometimes succeed in the most with all the national hook-ups on the radio, I

difficult and apparently hopeless cases. thought I had better. So our efforts cannot stop with a mere I want to talk to you a little bit now about change in public opinion. We must organize to the second group which I said I represented. change the conditions which that public opinion The unnamed, the nameless, the alcoholics. I

has brought about. We must see to it that there would say that perhaps ninety per cent of them are other places than jails in which to put these have no idea what their trouble is. You know, the sick people when they are in the delirium of their alcoholic is a part of the public. The attitude that sickness – acute intoxication. We must set up I have described to you which the public holds is information centers where individuals and family shared in by those people who suffer from this and friends – agencies that are forced to handle illness. I can tell you this from my own their problems – doctors and ministers who experience. I had never heard the word usually see more of it than anyone else — can go alcoholic; I had never heard the word to get the facts on the disease itself, and on the alcoholism. Of course, I had heard of drunkards; facilities available in that area for its treatment. everybody has. I also knew or thought I knew These centers must ceaselessly carry on an what a drunkard was. He was that unfortunate intensive campaign of education in their person that one saw if one went to the less communities, aimed at uncovering more and pretty part of town, shuffling about in rags, more hidden alcoholics and also at providing an bearded, unwashed, sleeping in doonruays, in environment of enlightened understanding in gutters, sticking out filthy hands for a dime for a which the process of recovery will be possible. cup of coffee and you hoped he wouldn’t touch Every community will find that there are you. not many facilities other than the local group of lf I had given any thought to the subjectI

A.A. about which they can give information; and would have described that person as a person yet other facilities will be needed. Therefore, who had never had a chance, or the opportunity these organized groups (which we must call to know the normal way of life, and who, if he local committees of the National Committee) had been born to better things, had something must next undertake the difficult task of missing, something that made him unable to persuading general hospitals to open beds for take advantage of his opportunities. I would the treatment of alcoholics in the acute stage. have said that there was nothing that could be This I might add, is a matter of crisis – of done about it, and if there was he wouldn’t be extreme emergency – in which the lack of worth salvaging as there wasn’t anything there in immediate medical treatment all too frequently the first place. causes death. Next, they will need a clinic for I might have conceded that there were a diagnosis and treatment and later they will need few localized cases in which some terrible rest centers for those who require longterm tragedy had driven the person to drink – to drown care. his sorrows in drink, but I actually that was pretty It is no longer necessary to say that we well confined to the pages of romance literature. believe – we can now say that we know that this That is all I knew about it. program of community action is a beginning I think you will understand then that toward the solution of this problem which is so when this thing began to happen to me it was appalling in its devastation and waste. We can simply not possible for me to identify myself with

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that picture. How could someone with my can we go in this city for help?” And centers that background, with my upbringing, with my have been established and the members of the education, how could someone like that have Committee that set up those centers are aware this happen. Oh, no, it couldn’t happen here. of their needs and they have the answers for Another thing I knew (and anyone who them: what hospitals will take alcoholics; are knew me could testify) was that I had been there any in the community; can we persuade afflicted with a little too much of that commodity them to take alcoholics in; can we at long last known as will power, in my case called willful. I provide something for these desperately sick had always gotten what I went out for. I had people. Can we provide medical treatment that achieved quite a bit in my life. I had never will prevent their deaths? Yes, we can, and we suffered from any lack of will power or lack of must. character either. And those attributes were not a I want to establish here before I leave part of the picture that I had. This person, this Detroit such a Committee as has already been drunkard, had no will power, no spine, no started. I want to see the attempt made at backbone, no character. community action. I believe that it can succeed When these things began to happen to and I believe that when all of these cities in this me, it had to be something else, it could not be Country put this plan into action we will see in that. lt had to be some terrible mental collapse front of us the possibility of controlling the since, obviously, I could not even look in that disease of alcoholism. direction. I could not say, “this is me.” The thing we are attempting to do is not There you have the problem with a great so very difficult – it is not very different from what many of the alcoholics. How can they admit to we had to do on a national scale forty years ago this thing with their perverted and prevalent with T.B. That was the primary killer then; that conception of what this thing is? How can a man was the stigma then; that was the thing that no who still has a job or has only just lost his job family would admit to having. They were so through drinking come out openly and say: “l am careful that no one should know, that people a drunkard; I have no will power; I have no with T.B. died like flies from lack of treatment. character; I am a bum?” He isn’t and knows he Then an intensified campaign was put on…of isn’t. He is faced with the same dilemma in education and the setting up of proper facilities. which I found myself. Why is it that my will Now the White Plague T.B. is at last under power is so strong on every- thing else and has control and we no longer regard it as the stigma no effect on drinking. Why can’t I answer when it was. We can do the same for alcoholism but my friends say to me, “Why can’t you be like we must put not only moral support but financial other people and drink sensibly,” “Why can’t you support behind this effort. We must see that drink like so and so; I made every effort to take these things are done that will repay us a one or two and stop; but it was just like butting thousand fold. my head against a stone wall. I know by virtue of my own position as That wall was the wall of ignorance and an alcoholic thousands of men and women who the wall of prejudice. lt nearly killed me, and it is have recovered from this illness. I can assure killing other alcoholics every day. lf we can you from my personal experience that these break that wall down we can reach these people people make better than average citizens. lt is and we can help these people. A program of as if they felt they had to make up for lost time. community action such as I described briefly will They put themselves into things with twice the do that job. ln every one of the cities where this amount of energy of anyone else. They work program is in action more and more alcoholics harder at it and they give more of themselves. come fonrvard and ask for help. ln every city These people are well worth saving and yet where we have information centers they are today we are allowing them to die right and left. coming and asking for this information and their We know, for instance, that every year families and’friends and employers are coming. 12,000 people die with alcoholism put on their They are all asking, “What is this thing, death certificates as the primary or secondary alcoholism,” “What can we do about it;” “Where cause of death. We know also that that must be

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but a fraction of the actual deaths for we know pleasure has been and deeply as I feel the that wherever the family is still there they will go honor of appearing before you as a woman. I to any lengths to see that those grim words are understand that is a very rare occasion here. not put on the death certificates. These people The real purpose of my visit is to put a piece of do not need to die. That great loss that you dynamite under those who are already heard Dr. Jellinek describe does not need to go interested and try to arouse interest in the rest of on. All of this unnecessary waste we can stop. you to put into effect a program of community We can stop it first, by changing our own action. attitude, next by trying to change the attitude of It wouldn’t do much good if I came and everyone else we know, presenting them with went and you talked about it for a few days and these simple concepts, asking them to think then other concerns came up and you forgot them over and then to act on them. We can top about it. No, We want something to go on; we it by setting up Committees such as I have want continuity in the program; we want results. described and by making great efforts to provide I am convinced that we can have in facilities for our cities. Those are the steps we Detroit our most effective Committee for need to take; those are the steps I hope you will Education on Alcoholism if all of you present will take here. help out. My visit to Detroit has not been just to speak to you gentlemen, as great as that

Source: Vital Speeches of the Day, February 1, 1947.

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