HWS: Marty Mann

Marty Mann

Marty Mann, the founder and executive director of the National Council on Alcoholism (now the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence or NCADD), was a world authority in the health field of alcohol addiction. Her own recovery from alcoholism, begun in 1939, led to her long interest in treating and educating the country about the disease.

As the director of the NCADD, Mann educated medical professionals, social workers and clergy about alcoholism; established an alcohol center in every state; and provided treatment for alcoholic patients in hospitals and clinics. She addressed joint sessions of the state legislatures in South Carolina, Michigan and Utah and gave more than 200 lectures each year. At the request of the U.S. State Department, she was also an official delegate to the 23rd International Congress on Alcoholism in Switzerland.

Trained at the Yale School of Alcohol Studies, she was a fellow of both the American Public Health Association and the Society of Public Health Educators. She also acted as a special consultant to the director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and was a member of the Silver Hill Foundation, a private psychiatric hospital in Connecticut.

In 1980, two weeks after speaking at Alcoholics Anonymous’ international convention in New Orleans, she suffered a stroke at home and died at the age of 75. After her death, a long tribute to her was read in the Congressional Record of the U.S. Senate.