With a Lot of Help from Our Friends: The Politics of Alcoholism
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
This book tells the fascinating inside story of the period from 1970 to 1980, the most important decade in the history of alcohol legislation since Prohibition, with the famous Hughes Act as its centerpiece. We meet Harold Hughes, the charismatic senator and former governor from Iowa, a recovered alcoholic himself, and Marty Mann, the beloved "first lady of Alcoholics Anonymous" and founder of the National Council on Alcoholism. We meet Bill Wilson, the co-founder of A.A., and we hear him deliver his historic testimony before a Senate committee. The author, a participant in all she describes, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at this band of recovered alcoholics as they bared their souls before congressional hearings and succeeded in convincing a Congress and three reluctant Presidents of the United States to support this effort. We meet Academy Award winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, Senator Harrison Williams, Ways and Means chairman Wilbur Mills, and many others. This was the activist wing of the Twelve Step movement, so rarely acknowledged in spite of the enormous impact it has had. And she describes the many non-alcoholics who courageously supported them, like Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, Orin Hatch, along with Captain Joe Zuska who founded the Navy's treatment center at which Betty Ford, the wife of President Ford, later sought help.
About the Author
Shortly before his death in 1996, former Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa asked Nancy Olson to write this book, telling the story of what they and their friends had done to try to help the plight of alcoholics in the United States. Olson, like Hughes a recovered alcoholic, had been involved in the alcoholism field since 1965. In 1969, he appointed her to the staff of the newly created Special Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics and she served on Hughes' staff until he left the Senate in 1975. During this period the epoch-making "Hughes Act" became law. Because of the many alcoholics and their families who contacted Hughes' office for help, she and the Senator in effect ran the first, albeit informal, Employee Assistance Program for Members of Congress, their families, and their staffs. They also counseled many high-ranking government and military personnel, and on numerous occasions even strangers who walked in off the street. In 1975 Olson was re-appointed to the staff by Senator Harrison A. Williams of New Jersey, and thus also was involved in drafting the 1976 and 1979 amendments to the Hughes Act. During this period she also had primary staff responsibility for congressional oversight of the activities of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She resigned from the Senate staff in 1980, after which she briefly served as a part-time Washington representative for the Hazelden Foundation, while preparing to enter a monastery of the Visitation of Holy Mary. In 1982, for health reasons, she returned to secular life in Washington where she worked as a legislative analyst and lobbyist until her retirement in 1995. She now devotes her full time to research and writing, and is a popular speaker on alcoholism both nationally and internationally.
With a Lot of Help from Our Friends: The Politics of Alcoholism,Nancy Olson,Backinprint.com,0595270379,History,History - U.S.,History: American,Modern - General,United States - General,Alcoholics Anonymous,Political Science,Social Policy,Substance Abuse & Addictions - Alcoholism,Legal status, laws, etc,Self-Help,Employee assistance programs
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