Dr. Roman -- I don't know how useful it will be for your purpose. I am not
an academic type and this is just the history of the Hughes years in the
Senate and is anecdotal.
But here it is for what it's worth. It is a chapter from my manuscript on
the creation of NIAAA, so is copyrighted material.
Chapter 3
POVERTY, CAUSE OR RESULT OF ALCOHOLISM?
"It is clear that a worker, a housewife, a family, cannot fully benefit from
services provided by the Office of Economic Opportunity or community
agencies, if each step forward is to be canceled out by debilitating effects
of alcoholism or problem drinking." (Senator Ralph Yarborough, 1969.)*
When I moved to Washington from New York City in 1967, one of the first
people I met was Matt Rose. Matt and his wife were both recovered
alcoholics, and when they learned that I was new in town immediately invited
me to join them for coffee and conversation.
During the 11 years I worked for the Subcommittee, many recovered alcoholics
who were visiting or new to Washington found their way to my office. I tried
to follow Matt's example, and made sure they met many other recovered
alcoholics in Washington.
At the time, Matt was an administrator at the Office of Economic Opportunity
(OEO). OEO had been created by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his War
on Poverty.
During the Johnson Administration, Sargent Shriver headed OEO. Matt told me
that the OEO authorizing legislation would soon come up for renewal in the
Senate, and said he thought it would be a good idea if Hughes tried to amend
the bill - which was in the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare - to
earmark funds for alcoholism. Under Sargent Shriver's leadership, OEO had
funded some alcoholism programs, including one which Hughes had created as
Governor of Iowa.
I suggested that Matt talk with the Senator about it. At first he was
hesitant. It could cost him his job. The Nixon Administration was adamant
that no federal employees, except official lobbyists for the government,
could visit Capitol Hill to try to influence legislation.
Finally Matt screwed up his courage and went to see Hughes. Hughes liked the
idea, and took it to Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, who chaired the
Employment, Manpower and Poverty Subcommittee, on which Hughes also served,
and which had jurisdiction over the bill.
The "Rose Amendment," - as I like to call it - to the OEO bill was part of
the package reported from the committee to the full Senate. During the
October 14, 1969, debate on the bill, Chairman Yarborough described it like
this:
"Mr. President, another significant outcome of our study of the OEO program
is the recommendation that a new national program of alcoholism counseling
and recovery be undertaken in conjunction with the war on poverty. Small
authorizations of $10 million in 1970 and $15 million in 1971 are included to
get this effort underway. Such an addition is necessary if the assistance
provided through the other programs is to have any effect on those families
suffering the ravaging effects of alcoholism. It is clear that a worker, a
housewife, a family cannot fully benefit from services provided by OEO or
community agencies if each step forward is to be canceled out by debilitating
effects of alcoholism or problem drinking.
"My distinguished colleague from Iowa, Senator Harold Hughes, chairs a
Special Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics which, as committee
chairman, I created this year. He is an internationally recognized expert in
this field. It is through his diligent work on the relationship between
alcoholism and poverty that we have come forward with language that
authorizes the Office of Economic Opportunity to forthrightly direct its
attention to the problem of alcoholism and recovery. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank Senator Hughes' initiative in directing the
attention of the Senate and the administration to this problem."
Senator Dominick authored a companion program to the one on alcoholism,
directed toward rehabilitating drug users.
This amendment passed the Senate during the brief period when I was still a
volunteer and holding down another full-time job. But Matt kept me informed,
and when I was appointed to the Subcommittee staff a few weeks later, Matt
came to my office and gave me a full briefing on the OEO legislation. When I
later thanked him, and told him how helpful the briefing had been, Matt
smiled gently and replied: "I believe in educating my friends."
But passing legislation authorizing funds for federal programs is only the
beginning. Funds then have to be appropriated to carry out these programs.
The Nixon Administration opposed the earmarking of funds for alcoholism and
drug abuse in the OEO amendments. Donald Rumsfeld, the new Administrator of
OEO, wanted to have 100% freedom in the spending of the $2 billion authorized
for OEO. So on January 20, 1970, Hughes found himself back on the floor of
the Senate defending the earmarking of the alcoholism and drug addiction
moneys.
Senator Nelson pointed out that the committee had held hearings over a period
of many months. They considered and debated the earmarking issue at great
length, both at subcommittee and committee level as well as on the floor of
the Senate. A motion was made to eliminate the earmarking during Senate
consideration and had been decisively defeated on a roll call vote. A
similar procedure occurred on the House side. The House had also passed a
bill containing a form of earmarking. During the Senate and House conference
on the bill, earmarking was again a major issue. Agreement had been reached.
And finally both Houses had accepted the report of the conference committee
containing earmarking.
Nevertheless, Rumsfeld preferred no earmarking. As Senator Nelson noted,
Rumsfeld could not be blamed for taking that position. He said: "If I were
the administrator of such a program, I, too, might very well prefer to have
100 percent freedom in the spending of $2 billion. And I might very well
feel that my judgment was better than that of Congress, as most
administrators do feel."
But Congress had decided it wanted to give OEO a clear directive as to how it
wished to see resources committed on the war on poverty. In fact, they were
extremely considerate. They simply took the budget recommendations made by
the President and made them the basis for the earmarking.
They had merely added two small new programs: for alcoholism and drug abuse.
And to show that they were serious about these programs, they directed OEO to
reserve funds for these programs to guarantee that they would be established.
*******
While this debate was going on in the Senate, Hughes telephoned me from the
Senate cloakroom and asked me how many alcoholics there were in the country.
I told him that the National Council on Alcoholism was currently estimating
that there were 6-1/2 million alcoholics in the United States. "But," I
added, "they claim that it is a very conservative figure."
"How many do you think there are?" Hughes persisted.
"Oh," I replied casually, "if I had to guess I'd say there are twice that
many."
I reviewed the Congressional Record the next day and was appalled to read
Hughes' words:
When I became interested in the study of alcoholism some 15 years ago, the
National Council on Alcoholism estimated that there were 5-1/2 million
alcoholics in this Nation and that each one affected at least four other
people. ... Now, I believe, that office says there are 6-1/2 million....
I do not accept those figures. I believe the number of alcoholics in this
country is easily double that number, or 13 million.
A few months later new statistics were published by the National Council on
Alcoholism. They were now stating that there were 13 million alcoholics in
the nation. "Well, Senator, they had it on good authority," I told him, "the
Congressional Record."
I often told that story, and a few years later an executive from the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) said "Nancy, it gets worse
than that! NIAAA funded a major epidemiological study to find out how many
alcoholics there are. Do you know what that expensive study found? There
are 13 million alcoholics in the nation."
When I told Hughes about this, he joked: "Well, Nancy, I never doubted your
word. I always knew you were psychic!"
In 1996, while researching this book, I spent a few days at NIAAA. I told
this story to Dr. Enoch Gordis, the current Director of NIAAA, and he said
"it's amazing how close you came." The staff then showed me an
epidemiological study which estimated that there were 13.7 million alcoholics
in the nation.*
*******
Matt Rose had responsibility for the earmarked alcoholism funds at OEO and he
put them to good use. When President Nixon declared that we had won the war
on poverty and called home the troops (i.e., abolished OEO), almost 200
grants serving residents of low income areas, American Indians, and Alaskan
natives were transferred to NIAAA. These programs were the first federal
grants for services to persons with alcohol problems and provided primarily
outreach and linking services or outpatient care or both. The poverty grant
program became the largest of NIAAA's special population categorical program
areas. They were transferred because they were seen as the group least
likely to continue to receive funding when categorical grants were
discontinued, because their approach was not consistent with the treatment
approach favored by state or third-party funders.**
Many of the counselors who worked in these programs had no professional
training. Most of them, however, had developed impressive skills in working
with alcoholics and other addicted people as a result of their experience in
Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 Step programs. So Matt Rose also
established five training regions in New Jersey, Louisiana, California, Utah
and Illinois. The founders of the National Association of Alcoholism
Counselors and Trainers (NAACT) in 1972 were the five persons in charge of
these five alcoholism counselor training programs: Robert Waymer in Georgia,
Jay Cross in New Jersey, W.W. Williams in Louisiana, Richard Kite in
California, Fenton Moss in Utah, and James Towlerton in Illinois. In time,
Robert Dorris served as its first and only President.* According to Waymer,
as quoted in The Counselor in 1992:**
"Our objective was to hire people to become counsellors and trainers. Since
each of us was an alcoholism trainer, we had access to students, who once
trained, could be placed in community service organizations.
"Once our own programs were in place, we organized ourselves into a national
association so that we could have credibility.
"We knew that once counselors received training, they had to join a 'normal'
society and be a member of a professional association, just like other
professions. NAACT was founded to make alcoholism counselor trainers look
professional.
"Our original idea was to have counselors train people in communities to deal
with the growing alcoholism problem. The training we taught was not based on
clinical skills; it was based on a community development model with emphasis
on AA. We discussed the development of a disease concept, what counselors'
attitudes should be towards clients, what involvement churches and community
organizations should have, and we concentrated on the political structure
since City Hall had the funding and resources we needed to provide our
services.
"Because we required that all counseling students join NAACT, our dues were
only $2.00.
"Even though NAADAC today is a different organization than the one I
cofounded in 1972, the never-ending commitment and dedication of counselors
to their evolving profession have allowed the soul of NAADAC to breathe its
own life."
When Matt left government service he helped organize, and became the first
Executive Director of NAACT. NAACT was the forerunner of what is now the
National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC), one of
the organizations which grew out of the work we did on the subcommittee, and
one of the things in which the Senator and I both took the most pride. Years
ago they made Hughes a lifetime honorary counselor emeritus of the
association.
In 1976 I was made an honorary member of the Virginia Association of
Alcoholism Counselors, and in 1979 I received an "outstanding achievement
award" for "devotion and commitment to the New Profession of Alcoholism
Counseling," from the National Association of Alcoholism Counselors. Both
plaques hang on the wall in my study as study as I write this book.)
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