Betty Ford's many contributions

Betty Ford, who died last week at age 93, was among the country's most influential presidential spouses. She was memorialized Tuesday in California, and a funeral will be held in Michigan on Thursday.

First lady during the turbulent post-Watergate years from 1974 to 1977, Ford will be best remembered for taking two steps that moved the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction forward more than anything since the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. The first was admitting, two years removed from the White House, that she was addicted to both alcohol and painkillers. The second was establishing the Betty Ford Clinic (now Center) in 1982.

Combined, these actions made seeking treatment for dependency more socially acceptable, paving the way for countless others to acknowledge their addictions and turn for help.

Speaking at Ford's service yesterday, former Betty Ford Center director Geoffrey Mason, who was a patient in the facility in 1983, called her the "omnipresent face of recovery" in America. That's true, but it's not all. She was also the face of breast cancer, after she had a mastectomy in 1974, went public with the experience, and fought for awareness and research. She led the battle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, and inspired women even in its ultimate defeat in 1982.

She was outspoken, opinionated, driven to make the world better and successful in doing so. She will be missed, and remembered. hN