Mrs. Ford Now on Her Own

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Where was Betty Ford when her namesake clinic for substance abusers opened in 1982? Dashing off to Kmart with her husband to buy soap dishes for patients' rooms.

The former first couple were not the type to stand on ceremony when it came to helping others.

Perhaps no first lady in history has touched the lives of more Americans more directly than Mrs. Ford, who publicly admitted to her drug and alcohol addiction and also talked openly about her battle with breast cancer at a time when few public figures spoke about either.

The result was that thousands sought help for their addictions, and screenings for breast cancer surged.

The death of former President Gerald R. Ford this week has left Mrs. Ford without her husband of 58 years and without a partner in her efforts at the Betty Ford Center.

"He truly wanted this to be her place, her mission, so he purposely stayed in the background, but he was always there," said John Schwarzlose, the center's president. "They were just two down-to-earth Americans who wanted to give alcoholics and addicts a chance to get well."

Mrs. Ford's frankness about her dependence on prescription drugs and alcohol has been widely credited with removing some of the stigma associated with addiction.

"It's hard to imagine a more important figure in the substance abuse field than Mrs. Ford," said Rick Rawson, associate director of the integrated substance abuse program at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Rawson, who has studied substance abuse addiction since the 1970s, said it was a huge gamble for a prominent person like Mrs. Ford to publicly admit her demons. Her acknowledgment nearly 30 years ago helped many others break their silence, Rawson said.

"If someone of her standing and her character can have a substance abuse problem, then anybody can have a substance abuse problem," Rawson said.

The Betty Ford Center has treated 76,000 people, including such luminaries as Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Lawford, Johnny Cash, Mickey Mantle and Mary Tyler Moore.

The 20-acre facility is tucked at the end of a guarded driveway and secluded behind high shrubbery on the grounds of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, a celebrity-studded desert oasis 120 miles east of Los Angeles where the family settled after Ford left the White House in 1976.