Confronting Betty Ford’s addiction

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1978, former first lady of the United States, Betty Ford, announced that she had an addiction to alcohol and prescription medication, and would be seeking treatment.

Wife of the 38th US president Gerald Ford, her openness and honesty about her addictions was remarkable for its time and was headline news.

But it was her daughter, Susan Ford, who had organised the family intervention to confront her mother about her addiction, prompting her to seek help.

Susan Ford Bales remembers the moment she knocked on her mother's door early in the morning with the rest of her family and begged her to get help.

Betty Ford would go on to establish the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California to help others struggling with addiction.

Susan Ford tells her and her mother’s story to Colm Flynn.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Betty Ford. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.
0:05.1	My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.
0:11.3	It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,
0:16.2	but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.
0:19.6	And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths,
0:23.0	we have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives,
0:26.6	we've got drama and even comedy experts.
0:28.9	We really can do those stories justice.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds
0:34.2	where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK.
0:43.4	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me,
0:49.0	Cullum Flynn. And I want to bring you back to April of 1978, to a very private moment between a family that would go on to become very public.
1:01.0	In the small US city of Rancho Mirage in Southern California,
1:06.0	Susan Ford had organized a family intervention to confront her mother
1:10.5	about her alcoholism and addiction
1:12.8	to prescription medication. We knocked on the front door, rang the doorbell. And this was April 1st,
1:19.5	1978. We had to do it early in the morning before she had taken medications. And she opens the
1:26.7	door and she sees all of her kids along with my dad
1:29.6	and dad just said come sit in the living room we want to talk to you as a family wow that's
1:34.4	Susan Ford Bales remembering the moment that her dad former US president Gerald Ford and the rest
1:40.8	of the family finally had the courage to confront their mother, former first lady
1:45.4	Betty Ford, about her addiction. I mean, he just sat down and he held her hand and he talked about
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.