The Betty Ford Center is a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for adults in Rancho Mirage, California, United States, co-founded by former U.S. First Lady Betty Ford and Leonard Firestone in October, 1982.
Ford's decision to undertake such a project followed on the heels of her own battle with alcohol dependence and opioid analgesic addiction[1], and after her release from the U.S. Naval Hospital, she pursued the goal of creating a treatment center that emphasized the needs of women.
Susan Ford, daughter of Ford and the late President Ford, serves as the center's current chairperson.
The center, affectionately called "Camp Betty" by current and former patients, is located on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center. It has gained notoriety as the treatment center used by many celebrities.[1]
Programs
The center offers the following levels of care/programs:[2]
- Inpatient detox and treatment - typically 30 days.
- Residential Day Treatment (RDT) - typically 30-60 days in off-campus housing, usually following inpatient treatment.
- Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) - 5 evenings a week for 8 weeks.
- Clinical Diagnostic Evaluation (CDE) - A diagnostic assessment program for licensed healthcare professionals, attorneys, pilots and other individuals to determine whether or not they meet the DSM-IV criteria for "Substance Dependence."
- Family program - education on addiction as well as skills and tools for family members (age 13 and up) to begin their own healing process.
- Children's program - a 4-day program for children aged 7-12 with families suffering from addiction.
Betty Ford Center in popular culture
On an episode of the TV show ALF, ALF is addicted to eating cotton, which causes psychedelic experiences for him. Kate comments "We can take ALF to the Betty Ford Center and see if they have a cotton program."
A foreword to one of the books of Calvin and Hobbes comments how as people grow older, they can find it hard to recapture the serendipity of childhood, going on to say "...a desperate few do the things that later land them in the Betty Ford Center. The rest of us, more sensibly, read Calvin and Hobbes."
In an episode of the The Simpsons, "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie go to see a musical based on The Betty Ford Center. Bart comments, "When I grow up, I want to be in the Betty Ford Center." Marge replies, "Better start saving now, it's very expensive."
In an 1984 Bloom County strip, Bill the Cat is sent to the Ford Center to be deprogrammed after his rescue from a Rajneeshee cult.
In a comedic sketch done by Mad TV's Nicole Sullivan, The Vancome Lady character works at the Betty Ford Center as a sarcastic and condescending receptionist poking fun at celebrities and their families who are either residing at the center at the time or are trying to check in. Celebrity clients include Billy Joel.
The character Murphy Brown from the sitcom of the same name spent a month in the Betty Ford Center immediately prior to the pilot episode for abuse of alcohol and cigarettes.
In an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, Patsy Stone says that the last mosquito that bit her had to book into the Betty Ford Clinic. In the first episode of Absolutely Fabulous, Patsy Stone rang her best friend Eddy Monsoons' daughter, pretending to be calling from the Betty Ford Clinic, confirming her booking for 4 weeks next Monday.
The second track on Lawnmower Deth's 1990 album is titled Betty Ford's Clinic.
In the X-Files episode Anasazi, Fox Mulder declares he is at the Betty Ford Center when contacted by the Cigarette Smoking Man, when in fact he is in Mexico.
In an episode of Two and a Half Men, Alan says of his ex-mother-in-law, "Remember when she rode out of Betty Ford on a lawnmower?"
At the very end of the spoof travel series Dom Joly's Happy Hour (Sky, 2007), Dom Joly's friend and co-traveller Peter Wilkins remains upon a mountain-top in India, supposedly as a guru after "finding [his] aura", whilst Dom finds himself in the Betty Ford Clinic, presumably due to all the alcohol he'd drunk on his travels.
In an episode of Father of the Pride Siegfried and Roy take their lions, Sarmoti and Larry, to the Betty Ford Center, hoping to cure their 'addiction' to pain pills.
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