Marty Mann

In 1980, Mann suffered a stroke at home and died soon after. Many histories of Alcoholics Anonymous make only passing mention of Mann, perhaps because NCEA had no formal relationship to AA. However, Mann's public admission of her own alcoholism, her successful experience with AA, and her encouragement of others — especially women — to get help contributed substantially to AA's growth.

Marty Mann's obituary was published in the New York Times: "MARTY MANN DEAD; HELPED ALCOHOLICS; Founder of Alcoholism Council, 75, Wrote Books and Lectured Extensively on Drinking 'I Am an Alcoholic' (Published 1980)

In the 1950s, Edward R. Murrow included her in his list of the 10 greatest living Americans. Her book New Primer on Alcoholism was published in 1958.

Marty Mann and R. Brinkley Smithers funded Dr. E. Morton (Bunky) Jellinek's initial 1946 study on Alcoholism. Dr. Jellinek's study was based on a narrow, selective study of a hand-picked group of members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) who had returned a self-reporting questionnaire.

In 1945, Mann became inspired with the desire to eliminate the stigma and ignorance regarding alcoholism and to encourage the "disease model" which viewed it as a medical/psychological problem, not a moral failing. She helped start the Yale School of Alcohol Studies (now at Rutgers), and organized the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), now the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence or NCADD.

Mann organized the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) in 1944, which later became the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), and then the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), to address concern with other drugs. She traveled across the U.S. educating medical professionals legislators, businessmen and the public to the importance of treatment and education of the fatal disease of alcoholism. In 1976 the NCA organized Operation Understanding where 50 celebrities and professionals gathered to address the social stigma surrounding alcoholism. Actors, politicians, sports legends, physicians, lawyers, clergy and more stood up in the hotel ballroom and said "I am an alcoholic." The NCA hoped to reduce the social stigma surrounding alcoholism and encourage individuals and their family to get treatment. Marty hoped to raise social awareness that alcoholism is not a moral weakness but a deadly disease.

Marty was married briefly in her 20s but was a lesbian for the rest of her life. Mann was her maiden name, and she used the Mrs. title to protect her privacy. Society's prejudice against homosexuality was as strong as it was toward alcoholism during the 1940s and 1950s when she and the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism were struggling to survive.

Her alcoholism escalated and she spent 6 months in a London Hospital after a second suicide attempt. She was encouraged to return home to America by her friends. In 1936, she returned to her family in the United States and sought help from doctors. She quickly became a charity patient at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She eventually transferred to Blythewood Sanitarium in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1939, her psychiatrist Dr. Harry Tiebout gave her a pre-publication manuscript of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and persuaded her to attend her first AA meeting. This meeting took place at the home of Lois and Bill W (co-founder of AA) at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn, New York.

Mann moved to England in 1930 and fell in love with photographer Barbara Ker-Seymer. The Tate Museum in London has photographs detailing their social circle. British photographer and society figure, considered one of the group designated by the tabloid press as 'Bright Young People'. They visited the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. She also socialized with Janet Flanner, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

Margaret Marty Mann (October 15, 1904 – July 22, 1980) is considered by some to be the first woman with longterm sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.