Mrs. Marty Mann – Helping Alcoholics
Marty Mann from History of NCADD
Mrs. Marty Mann – the first woman member of AA – dedicated her life to helping alcoholics.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am reading an excellent biography on Mrs. Marty Mann, written by Sally Brown and David R. Brown, titled Mrs. Marty Mann, The First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous. This a fascinating read on so many fronts – its presentation of the history of alcoholism and treatment of the disease and the person who was Mrs. Marty Mann, as well as the impeccable research and engaging writing style.
I want to share Marty Mann’s philosphy on helping the alcoholic by quoting directly from pages 273-274 of this book:
“During the 1960s, Marty focused increasingly on two issues, one that dated from her early days with NCEA, the other a product of this particular decade. The first concern was intervention. The earlier it occurred in the disease process, the better. Early intervention was the difference between fishing someone out of the river way downstream, when they were half-drowned, and being upstream to prevent the person from falling in the river in the first place or being swept away by the current. In a 1968 address before the NCA affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio, Marty laid out the nuts and bolts of intervention….
Professional people don’t ask that persons with other diseases ‘be ready’ before they will treat them. Professional people, especially in medicine, can be effective interveners by providing accurate information. A Dallas social worker actually wrote an article that alcoholism was due to a domineering wife. Wrong! Before you try to help an alcoholic, learn as much as you can about the disease.
How do you intervene? Tell them! Many, perhaps most, alcoholics have no idea what is wrong with them. The world often assumes the alcoholic knows already what is wrong.
How do you actually tell a person? Start by tactful, nonthreatening questions. Say, ‘[Do you know] you have alcoholism,’ not ‘You are an alcoholic.’
Consider, What kind of treatment does an alcoholism center recommend? What else besides AA and Al-Anon? Use other resources, e.g., doctors, psychiatrists, etc. I believe AA is the only long-term resource for comfortable sobriety, but many people start in other ways. We need more [long-term] halfway houses…
Why do some people fail to achieve sobriety? Personal reservations, accompanying conditions from which they need additional help [dual diagnosis], they know someone who stopped on their own, or they’re unable to accept help.
There is no such thing as an instant cure.
“Marty forcefully repudiated the commonly accepted notion: ‘No one can help an alcoholic until he’s willing to stop drinking.’ Her experience and observation of others was that few alcoholics were willing in the beginning to stop drinking. To wait for that level of acceptance could be a death sentence for the alcoholic. But if an alcoholic had a modicum of willingness to accept help for whatever reason on even a temporary basis, then there was a chance that the drinking could be arrested.”
[Again, the above is a direct quote from from pages 273-274 of this book, Mrs. Marty Mann, The First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous.]
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Mrs. Marty Mann started her recovery in AA in 1939 (as the first woman, too, by the way – there was even sexism with regards to the disease – women alcoholics were considered to be far more loathsome human beings than male alcoholics, at the time). She went on to found the NCEA (National Committee for Education on Alcoholism, which became NCA, National Council on Alcoholism), and is today, the NCADD (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence).
I would have loved to have met Mrs. Marty Mann but feel Sally Brown and David R. Brown’s biography gets me pretty close to that experience. What a remarkable woman!
Lisa Frederiksen
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