The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence fights the stigma and the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions.

For Over 50 Years, The Voice of Americans Fighting Alcoholism

1964 - 1973

"Long characterized as a social beverage, alcohol, as a result of the hysteria over drug abuse in America, was receiving more and more attention as the most dangerous and most widely mis-used drug of all. It would be ironic, however, if the fight against alcoholism were now allowed to become obscured by being relegated to the position of just another drug problem."          Luther A. Cloud, president and          William W. Moore, Jr., executive director, 1970. "We alcoholic women are on the best-dressed list, the most-admired list year after year, we are the social butterflies the wittier darlings of the "in" group. We hold office, we sit as judges, we have large families, we teach Sunday school, we offer you coffee, tea, or milk on an airplane, and we administer vital sera into your veins."          Mercedes McCambridge, honorary chair, 1971. While social change swept through America, NCADD also went through a period of transition that would have a profound affect on the organization. The offices moved downtown from their original location in upper Manhattan. Affiliates, who started their own professional association, were given a stronger voice with the creation of the delegate assembly where policies were debated and national board members were elected. Marty Mann stepped down as executive director in 1967 to become founder consultant and concentrate on her world-wide speaking engagements. REACHING OUT TO THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY With the appointment of Frank Seixas, MD as medical director in 1969, NCADD put a much greater emphasis on educating the medical community. More than 30 medical schools attended a training conference hosted by NCADD and formal criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism were developed. An annual medical/scientific conference was convened and by 1973 the physicians comprising the membership of what is now the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) had voted to become a component of NCADD. Both an advertising and a public relations agency were brought in to professionalize the communications efforts of NCADD. This resulted in NCADD's first coordinated use of the print, radio and television media with the creation of a PSA campaign called "The Silent Treatment Is the Worst Treatment for the Disease of Alcoholism." Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge bravely assumed the highly visible role of NCADD's first honorary chair and publicized NCADD's message in an extraordinarily personal way. INCREASING DEMAND FOR EMPLOYEE ALCOHOLISM PROGRAMS Corporate America had awakened to the fact that alcoholism in the work force cost employers substantial sums and by 1964, 205 companies--up from 75 just a few years earlier--turned to NCADD for advice in developing employee alcoholism programs (EAPs). As the leader in this burgeoning movement, NCADD helped form a professional society of executives and consultants in this field which met for the first time in 1971. The federal government also was taking alcoholism more seriously than it ever had before. By 1965 Congress began holding hearings about the need to establish a federal agency to deal exclusively with the problems caused by alcoholism. A year later, around the time that President Johnson appointed Marty Mann to the first national advisory commission on alcoholism, the Washington, DC Affiliate won a precedent-setting legal victory when two federal courtsrecognized alcoholism as a disease. HERO IN WASHINGTON As Washington quickly became the center of the action, a heroic figure emerged. Harold Hughes, a young Democratic senator from Iowa, had consistently acknowledged his recovery from alcoholism while campaigning for public office. As chairman of a senate subcommittee on alcoholism and narcotics, he sponsored a bill that would earn him NCADD's highest honor, the Gold Key Award, and forever alter the alcoholism movement. Congress passed the Hughes Act in 1970, a year after NCADD's 25th anniversary. The legislation established the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). United Press International called passage of the Hughes Act a "signal victory" for groups such as NCADD. It also provided the impetus for the NCADD board to form its first public policy committee and to open an office in Washington, DC. Now NCADD had a permanent voice in the nation's capitol. 1974 - 1983

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc.

244 East 58th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10022 phone: 212/269-7797   fax: 212/269-7510 email: national@ncadd.org   http://www.ncadd.org HOPE LINE: 800/NCA-CALL (24-hour Affiliate referral)