Home > Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol, and Addictive Behavior > National Council On Alcoholism And Drug Dependence (Ncadd)

This is the ninth largest voluntary health organization in the United States and the country's major public advocate for the prevention and treatment of alcohol and other drug problems. Working through hundreds of local affiliate councils, state councils, and its New York City and Washington offices, NCADD sponsors prevention and education programs, information and referral services, scientific and clinical consensus development, public policy advocacy, and other related activities.

NCADD was established in 1944 as the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism. As the organization grew, its name and scope enlarged. It became the National Committee on Alcoholism in 1950, was renamed the National Council on Alcoholism in 1957, and assumed its present name in 1990.

The NCADD was the idea of a single individual, Marty Mann; she was its director until her retirement in 1968 and its guiding spirit until her death in 1980. Mrs. Mann was the first woman to recover from alcoholism through the fellowship of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (AA). During the early years of her recovery, she became increasingly aware that the United States was uninformed about the disease of ALCOHOLISM. The resulting stigma and prejudice kept alcoholics and their families from receiving the medical, social, and spiritual help they needed to recover. The structure and traditions of AA prevented it from becoming a public-health agency similar to those concerned with promoting prevention, treatment, and research for polio, tuberculosis, cancer, and heart disease. With the support of the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies, the council was incorporated and an office was established in the New York Academy of Medicine building in New York City. In 1950, it became independent of Yale. Ruth Fox, a psychiatrist who had helped found the council, became its first medical director in 1958. In 1969, she was succeeded by Frank A. Seixas, an internist.

During its early years, the council's activity consisted mainly of developing literature and presenting lectures to professional and lay groups on the concept of alcoholism as a disease and of organizing local affiliates to pursue this educational process in their own communities. By 1947, a survey of American adults showed that 36 percent believed alcoholism to be a disease, a remarkable increase from 6 percent who held this view in 1943. As interest in alcohol and drug problems expanded, the council developed and then published in 1972 the first set of medical criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism. In 1976, it sponsored Operation Understanding, in which fifty-two men and women known for their contributions in the areas of government, medicine, industry, science, journalism, and the arts publicly revealed their histories of recovery from alcoholism.

These and other activities have made NCADD an important force in the nation's development of service systems and health policy related to alcohol and other drug problems. NCADD helped establish the first industrial alcoholism programs, the first research society devoted to alcoholism, the first public education campaigns to promote the concept of alcoholism and other drug dependence as diseases, the movement to recognize the special needs of WOMEN with substance-related problems, and the nation's effort to understand and prevent FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME (FAS) and other effects in the fetus.

NCADD is also a leader in the U.S. campaign against alcohol-related highway ACCIDENTS and in promoting appropriate treatment services for substance-dependent pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Through its local affiliates, NCADD provides direct services, including education and prevention, in school and community settings, as well as information, intervention, and referral counseling, local alcohol- and drug-awareness campaigns, and other related activities.