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Betty Ford, Again Putting On A Brave Face
The former first lady spoke openly about challenges such as her drug and alcohol addiction.
(By Anna Moore Butzner -- Grand Rapids Press Via Associated Press)
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She was headstrong, a tomboy. She smoked cigarettes at 14. She played hockey and football with the boys, until her brothers made her stop. She was beautiful and blew off the idea of college to move to New York to become a dancer for Martha Graham. She returned home, married and divorced before she was 30.
The first time she had a date with Jerry Ford, it was for a drink in a bar. (In a McCall's interview in 1975, she said reporters had asked her everything but how often she slept with her husband, "and if they'd asked me that I would have told them." And her answer? "As often as possible.")
Later, on the national stage, she spoke up for women's rights and for abortion rights: "It has to be understood that that there are extenuating circumstances where a woman must have the right to make decisions about her own body."
In 1975, she was one of 11 women Time magazine named "Man of the Year" that year. She topped Good Housekeeping's poll to determine the most admired woman in America. People named her one of the three most intriguing people in the nation.
But by 1978, a year out of the White House, the painkillers and the alcohol were eating her up. Her family called a meeting and presented her with the ugly truth. She was not pleased. When the doctor told her she was a "a drunk," the former president later recounted of his wife: "She was mad as hell."
She managed to detox at a naval center, then founded the Betty Ford Clinic, a rehabilitation center ($21,000 for 30 days) that is the premier such institution in the country. Her name became synonymous with recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Took a punch, gave back one better.
She never made any bones about her struggle.
"I liked alcohol, it made me feel warm," she wrote in her autobiography, "Betty: A Glad Awakening." "And I loved pills, they took away my tension and my pain. So the thing I have to know is that I haven't got this problem licked; to my dying day, I'll be recovering."
In November 1987, when she was 69, she underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery. It required pain medication, but she had to wean herself off it quickly, lest she become addicted again.
"There were a lot of sleepless nights where I just walked the floor."
And now, she'll lead the nation through the mourning of her husband, partner and friend.
You don't have to wonder how she'll handle it.
Resilience. You can't fake it. Not for a lifetime.
