Marty Mann

Education

She attended private schools, traveled extensively, and was a debutante.

Career

In part because of her life"s work, alcoholism became seen as less a moral issue and more a health issue. lieutenant is a common error that Marty Mann was the first woman in Associate of Arts.

Marty Mann came from an upper middle class family in Chicago. The social circle in which she moved was a fast-living one and Mann was known for her capacity to drink without apparent effect (often a sign of alcoholism).

Mann"s drinking, however, grew to the point where it endangered not only her business but her life, including at least one suicide attempt.

In 1939 her psychiatrist, Doctor Harry Tiebout, gave her a manuscript of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and persuaded her to attend her first Associate of Arts meeting (at the time there were only two Associate of Arts groups in the entire United States). Despite several relapses during her first year and a half, Mann succeeded in becoming sober by 1940 and, apart from a brief relapse nearly 20 years later, remained so for the rest of her life.

In 1945 Mann became inspired with the desire to eliminate the stigma and ignorance regarding alcoholism, and to encourage the "disease model" which viewed it as a medical/psychological problem, not a moral failing. She helped start the Yale School of Alcohol Studies (now at Rutgers), and organized the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), now the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence or NCADD. Three ideas formed the basis of her message:

Alcoholism is a disease and the alcoholic a sick person.

The alcoholic can be helped and is worth helping.

Alcoholism is a public health problem and therefore a public responsibility. Marty Mann and R. Brinkley Smithers funded Doctor East. Morton (Bunky) Jellinek’s initial 1946 study on Alcoholism. In the 1950s Edward R. Murrow included her in his list of the 10 greatest living Americans.

Her book New Primer on Alcoholism was published in 1958.

In 1980 Marty Mann suffered a stroke at home and died soon after. Many histories of Alcoholics Anonymous make only passing mention of Mann, perhaps because NCEA had no formal relationship to Associate of Arts. However, Mann"s public admission of her own alcoholism, her successful experience with Associate of Arts, and her encouragement of others — especially women — to get help contributed substantially to Associate of Arts"s growth.

Achievements

• The first woman to seek help from Alcoholics Anonymous was "Lil", who relapsed and later got sober outside Associate of Arts, and the first woman who attained any length of sobriety (although she later relapsed) was Florence R., author of the chapter "A Feminine Victory", in the first edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

Membership

Mississippi Mann was, however, the first lesbian member of Alcoholics Anonymous at a time when gay and lesbians were not accepted by society. Doctor Jellinek"s study was based on a narrow, selective study of a hand-picked group of members of Alcoholics Anonymous (Associate of Arts) who had returned a self-reporting questionnaire.