In this powerful episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, Patrick Flanagan shares his raw and honest journey from teenage drinking to battling alcoholism into adulthood. After multiple rehab stays, he achieved sobriety on January 18, 2019.
Patrick opens up about his transition from keeping his addiction private and the difference between being “dry” and genuinely sober.
He also discusses the impact of addiction on his loved ones, particularly his children, and the healing process that followed his surrender to sobriety. Tune in to hear Patrick’s inspiring story of resilience, honesty, and the healing power of recovery.
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You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Welcome back to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Today I am joined by Patrick Flanagan whose candid story offers a window into the realities of addiction and recovery. Patrick shares his journey from what seemed like the perfect life to the unraveling caused by addiction.
He opens up about hitting multiple rock bottoms, the difference between being dry and truly being in recovery. The impact his disease had on his family, the hope and healing he has found through recovery. Please welcome Patrick Flanagan.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:27
So, one of the things Patrick I I’m really, actually excited. I don’t think I’ve had anyone on so far who works on both intervention side or sober living. So, like you’re gonna bring in some real good information for families who love someone with the disease. But before we go down to the career path, you’ve been generous enough to come on and share your story, and would love you to introduce yourself, because everybody does it their own way, and I think it’s really interesting to hear.
So, if you were to identify whether you had a qualifier in your life with the disease of addiction before you came to understand you had a disease. Would love to hear a little bit of that. And if not, if it was you, we’ll go from there.
Partick Flanagan 02:11
Yeah, no, thank you, and thanks for having me. This is awesome. Really appreciate the opportunity. You know, mine is a good example, I think, of the progressiveness of the disease. I was a drinker in high school and in college, and then it progressed, and it progressed. And I remember, I like to kind of start my story when I turned I was 40 years old, and I threw a birthday party for myself and my ex-wife at the time. Our birthdays are two days apart, so we kind of a joint 40th birthday party. And every one of my friends about, you know, 30 couples, every single one of them brought me a bottle of Jamieson as my 40th birthday president, wow, because they knew that’s what I drank, right? So, I had this reputation of what I drank and that I was a drinker, and that that was, you know, it was big time. It was social drinking, almost, you know, every night and work drinking and everything else. And it just kind of progressed from there and then between age 40 and 45 was really where it just completely fell apart for me, and my life became unmanageable.
Margaret 03:10
When you look back, Patrick, were you exposed to anyone in your life with the disease? Family? You don’t have to name them, but did you have exposure to it, or was this something pretty new to you?
Patrick Flanagan 03:19
You know, I didn’t really have exposure to it. I didn’t know what an alcoholic looked like. I was, you know, typical alcoholics and somebody in the movies under a bridge kind of thing. You know, my mother’s father died when he was in his 40s. He fell down the stairs, you know. You know, Irish Catholic family from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, so I never really got the story about it, but obviously I know what happened now. It was in my family, like any kind of good Catholic, Irish alcoholic, you know, but it wasn’t really something. I didn’t grow up with a brother or a dad or anybody that was directly, you know, showed me the path to AA. I knew nothing about AA before my first meeting.
Margaret 04:03
Okay, so when you look back you you’ve mentioned Irish a few times. Your last name I’m familiar with, because growing up in Bermuda, one of the bars that came along was Flanagan’s, yeah, so the good Irish name that went along with a bar, when you got to that point of that birthday party, were you even thinking this is a concern, or were you like, great, they know me, you know. Were you there?
Patrick Flanagan 04:28
Yeah, I didn’t. It wasn’t a concern, because from the outside looking in, it looked great, right? I had a fairly successful career in financial markets. I had a nice house and a good neighborhood, kids at private schools, you know, white picket fence. I mean, from the outside it looked awesome, and from the inside it was, you know, House of Cards, and I was burning my life down. But, you know, I just kept saying, well, how could it be that bad if I’ve got this, if I’ve got that, if it looks like this, if I live in this neighborhood, that kind of stuff. An in all I look back on it now, and it’s all just kind of crazy, but at the time, I just thought, you know, can’t be that bad. Everything’s good, you know, nice cars, private schools, the whole deal.
Margaret 05:13
So, I’m going to move you forward in and back, because I think if this is interesting for families to hear too the understanding of an alcoholic with someone under the bridge. Very classic to many of us who didn’t know anyone in our family.
You then go forward, and you have the looks outside of the home, the career, the family going, okay, no major problem. Behind doors there were things starting to crumble. I’m sure. How many people do you come across who that’s their story. Is that rare? Is that common? Is that the norm?
Patrick Flanagan 05:46
I come across it a lot, and I do these interventions, and every time I do one in this in a nice suburban neighborhood or a fancy condo downtown. I drive in and I think to myself, man, like I’m only one person, and I’m getting called for this one intervention. Like, how many people out there are struggling because it is everywhere. It’s in the nice suburbs and the cull de sacs and the country clubs and the, I mean, it’s everywhere, right? And so, I do get amazed at where you know that, that it is everywhere.
Margaret: Yeah,
Patrick Flanagan: there’s no, there is no boundaries. And it’s not, you know, just kids. It’s not just, you know, I older adults. I’ve more and more of my cases are older adults. Now. I’ve learned a lot, and,
Margaret: yeah,
Patrick Flanagan: my scenario is not unique. It’s funny, like now I get friends from my old career in my old neighborhood. I see them checking out my LinkedIn page, and then all of a sudden, about a month later, I’ll get a call. Hey, can you go get coffee? I got to figure something out, or my husband’s struggling, or my wife’s struggling, or my dad or whatever, because I’m pretty open about my recovery. So, I get people reaching out from my old life. A lot.
Margaret 06:57
I can relate to that. So, I’m curious, when you say you’re open, did you make a conscious choice? Did that change? Were you always pretty open once you start to get help?
Patrick Flanagan: 07:07
No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t, and that didn’t work for me. You know, I tried to keep it quiet. I tried to keep it private. I got to go to rehab four times before I got sober, right? Every one of those times I learned something, but I kept trying to keep it private, and then I kind of burned my life to the ground, to a point where I got out of the Retreat at my last rehab, January 18, 2019, is my sober date, and I stayed at the retreat for 40 nights, and I kind of got out, and I was like, You know what? This isn’t working keeping it private. I’m going to go to Saint Paul, I’m going to go to sober living, and I’m going to get a job at Soapy Joe’s car wash. And I don’t care who knows, because it was at that point for me, it was dead, jail or recovery, and those are my three options. So, I just I got really open about it.
And then when we opened up the Lion House, there was an article in the Pioneer Press about it, and St Paul paper, and I got a lot of great feedback. And the story was I was really open on it, in the story, and it was interesting. The only, the only negatives I got was my 88-year-old mother, who I showed it to on the paper, and she read it, and she just said, well, it’s honest. And I could tell that, you know, she’s still part of that generation that wants to keep it quiet, right? All the other feedback I got was positive, and the amount of people I’ve been able to help because they know my story, I just it didn’t work for me to keep it private.
Margaret 08:32
Do you remember what your reasoning was in the beginning to keep it quiet? And it sounds like you got to the point of being more open as a result of it not working by keeping it quiet. But do you remember what was your thinking when you were not telling people? Yeah,
Patrick Flanagan 08:46
Yeah, I mean, shame, guilt, fear, all the above career, you know, I was a financial advisor at the time. So, you know, having a financial advisor with a drinking problem is not, you know, a great marketing tool. So, shame, fear, guilt, were kind of the main ones. And, family, you know, the DWI two DWIs whiskey plates, you know, picking up my daughter from eighth grade with a whiskey plate on my car. Not a lot of fun.
Margaret: Not very private, either,
Patrick Flanagan: Not very private. And, and now fun for them. And that’s what I was more concerned about, really. I could deal with it, but wasn’t, wasn’t a good dad moment for me.
Margaret 09:27
The disease creates many not great dad and mom moments, doesn’t it?
Patrick Flanagan: Yes, yeah.
Margaret: So, after your birthday, you get the Jameson at that point, it’s kind of like life’s going fine. Not a big deal. It’s what I do like they know me. Well, when does the first bottom come? If you like, I know we can keep digging. And it sounds like you had a few because you had numerous rehabs. But when was the first wakeup call? Or I’ve gotta do something. When did that happen?
Patrick Flanagan 09:56
Yeah, I did have a few bottoms or wake up calls the first. First one came when my now ex-wife did an intervention, just a couple friends, not professionally done, you know. And basically said, you know, either you’re going to go to Hazelden or I’m going to call a lawyer. I wasn’t given much option in between. So, I went to Hazelden, and I sat in the back of the room angry at the world, angry at her, angry at me, just angry at the world. And I sat there for 30 days, and I didn’t listen to a thing, and didn’t learn a thing, really, except that, you know, I was an alcoholic and, but I was just so angry. It just didn’t matter. Nothing got through to me at that time. So that was my first kind of, I guess, wake up call. But the following three years were just a complete and utter disaster.
Margaret 10:52
You came out of that, and you kept going for three years, drinking or not drinking?
Patrick Flanagan 10:56
Yeah, oh yeah. I mean drinking, in and out, pretending, lying, cheating, anxiety, the whole deal. I mean, got out of that stint at Hazelden, went to a sober house, got kicked out of that sober house, went to my sister’s basement, my brother’s basement, a friend’s couch, and then I actually, I lied enough to get my way back home in the guest bedroom of my house. It was my son’s senior year high school my daughter’s junior year, and I moved back in right before the fall. My son was captain of the high school football team, and I wanted to be there for that. And I actually stayed dry for the following eight, nine months.
Margaret: Okay.
Patrick Flanagan: I didn’t get sober, and I talked to families a lot about the difference between dry and sober, because I was still that angry, just pissed off at the world guy, and I wasn’t going to meetings. I didn’t get a sponsor. I didn’t really engage with AA, but I didn’t drink for a while, and that turned, you know, after about eight, nine months of that living in the guest room with a marriage falling apart. It just by the spring, it turned into a complete disaster again, and I found myself in a detox an hour outside of Philadelphia, because at that point, my ex-wife had brought in a professional interventionist, who is, ironically enough, now my mentor and one of my best friends.
Margaret: Kind of wild. How that happens, right?
Patrick Flanagan: It’s pretty crazy. Yeah, he’s been he’s been pretty awesome. He’s helped me build my practice, and he’s just an amazing man.
Bumper 12:24
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Margaret 13:43
So, let’s clarify for the listeners, for those family members who are wondering, what is the difference between dry and in recovery? I know you described it in your terms of what you weren’t doing, but how would you describe it if you were sitting with a family who was asking you, what is the difference?
Patrick Flanagan: 13:57
Yeah, serenity and happiness, right? And being happy and being serene and being, you know, part of as a opposed and not involved. You know, I’m an active five years sober, in January, I go to two meetings a week. I was at one of them this morning. I sponsor guys. I have a sponsor. I’m engaged. I’m part of, if I miss those two, well, one of those meetings in my house. So, I never miss it. But if I miss those meetings, I get called by guys. You know that, hey, where? Yeah, what’s going on? How you doing? You know, I’m part of the meeting, and I think that my serenity and happiness and purpose are way different. Dry is just you can be angry, and bitter, and pissed off and not drink, and eventually, if you’re an alcoholic like me, you’re going to drink again because you’re just so angry. So that the difference for me is really engagement with AA and I went to a lot of therapy early on in my recovery. I’m a big fan of getting a good therapist as well as AA.
Margaret 14:58
So, it’s all the behaviors a family might observe in their loved one, minus the alcohol consumption or the drug consumption.
Patrick Flanagan: 15:07
Yeah, sitting in the couch, in the in the in the corner room, you know, staring at the TV every night and not wanting to engage with family, not wanting to go to family things, having short temper, you know, the whole deal, and not being engaged with the family, even though you’re dry. You don’t want to talk about the past, you don’t want to talk about the future. You’re just stuck, and it’s just a miserable place to be, to be dry and be an alcoholic that’s dry and that’s over.
Margaret 15:37
Yeah. And I think in my own recovery story, being abstinent and in a recovery with community and people, I gain skills and tools to help me manage the disease differently than if I was trying to just sit there and tolerate the misery that it creates in my life without using what numbs me.
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah, yeah.
Margaret: And so, I think that to that point, and I think, from an Al-Anon perspective, or a family member’s perspective, it’s very similar. People who don’t engage in family recovery often suffer resentment, anger, mistrust, all of the symptoms that are natural as a loved one, they don’t get to heal them because they’re constantly looking at their alcoholic or addict to make them feel better than trying to find that way for themself.
Patrick Flanagan: 16:24
Yeah, they’re walking on eggshells, right? And they a lot of times I get, well, I don’t want to say this to them. It might trigger them. And I’m like alcoholics like me, there are no real triggers, right? We drink because it’s good, because it’s bad, because it’s Saturday, because it’s Monday, and, you know. And for the family members, they gotta get that stuff off their chest, or it’s just gonna eat them alive. I agree with that. That makes a lot of sense to me. What you just said.
Margaret 16:49
Well, I think, I think a family member’s drug of no choice is a walking, talking human being, and we do around them everything they do around their substance of no choice. And so, if we don’t find our own recovery, we’re basically waiting for our drug to make us feel good enough,
Patrick Flanagan: Right? Yeah,
Margaret: Not going to work.
Patrick Flanagan: 17:03
And when it happens, it’s fine. We work with some families and sad that relapses. Sometimes, when the person relapses, the family member gets all excited, like they just got, you know, high again, because they can rush in and help, and it’s like, nope. We told you not to do that, you know. So, yeah, mood
Margaret 17:21
It’s mood altering for sure. I don’t think a lot of people appreciate how mood altered family members are as a result of that. Need to fix managed control, and when it goes right man, whoo, you know. And that’s a really hard high to get rid of, because if we get rid of that high and the low the win, that’s what we do. But if we get rid of both of those, we’ve got to learn to just tolerate our own feelings, which we’re no better at than our alcoholic or addict partners.
Patrick Flanagan 17:44
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Margaret 17:48
So, we’ve got lots of work to do we establish that the disease does a lot of destruction in the family. So, one of the things that drew me to speaking to you, along with the fact that you do interventions, and you have these two, so two, right? The Irishman,
Patrick Flanagan 18:00
Yeah, two Women’s Sober Houses, the Lion House and Lion House Brownstone.
Margaret 18:05
Got it. I thought you had a man’s and a woman. So, thank you for clarifying.
Patrick Flanagan: Nope.
Margaret: But one of the things that I love is that you have those two entities too. But I was drawn to you because I heard you share your story, and one of the things that came through was your compassion for your family. Not from a place of shame, but from a place of understanding that this disease hurts everyone in the family.
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah.
Margaret: So, when you mentioned whiskey paints, going to school, dropping the kids, when is it that you were aware of the inability to like, look at the kids’ faces and not feel the shame. Like, when did that start happening when it was so painful to see their hurt or your partner’s hurt?
Patrick Flanagan: 18:50
Yeah, so I was in the Retreat for my second time at the retreat, my fourth rehab, the one that knock on wood is still going, yep. And they noticed something different about me at the Retreat that the time I was there, I started saying yes to things, right? And so they called my son. They knew they knew my son a little bit. And they called him. He was a freshman at University of St Thomas, which is just across the river from the Retreat. And he came out, and he kind of looked at me. He looked at me, and he said, he said, Well, Dad, what’s different this time? Like, you know, kind of which I deserve, right? He didn’t know why it was different. And I looked at him in the eyes and said, Charlie, I was afraid I was going to die. And that was the first time that he’d ever looked at me with alright, at least you’re not bullshitting me now. At least you’re not lying to me. At least you’re taking this seriously, right?
Margaret: Yeah.
Patrick Flanagan: And so that was the first time where I was started to be honest with my kids about what I’ve been going through.
Margaret 19:49
So, what was your tactic before honesty? I know we could say dishonesty, but like, how did you navigate around? Because kids are intuitive. They know something’s wrong, whether they know. Exactly what or not they get it. So how did you in your disease keep the kids, the family, from knowing exactly what was going on.
Patrick Flanagan: 20:09
Really, avoidance. And, you know, between the time I had that first intervention and went to Hazeldon and the time I went back to the retreat, it was about a three year span. I didn’t really live with my kids much besides that, nine months where I was dry, right?
I was in sober houses or my brother’s basement or whatever. I really didn’t have a lot to do with him for a while.
Margaret: So is the avoidance tactic.
Patrick Flanagan: It was big time avoidance. Um, and then, to your point, earlier, I’ll never forget when we pulled my son aside and we told him we were getting divorced after that, you know, eight or nine months of living together, but in separate rooms, and he just looked at us and was like, Finally, like, no shit. I mean, he, you know, they do know, right? And then, so I just kind of avoided it, and wasn’t really part of their lives for about three years, which I don’t love to talk about. It’s not a proud moment for me, but it’s what they needed. And when I finally got sober, and I talked to a lot of people about this now, is I didn’t see my kids for nine months, right? When I got that time, I saw Charlie at the retreat, it was eight or nine months later before I ever saw my kids again, you know? And then it started really slowly. It started nine holes of golf with Charlie, and that was it. I showed up early. I left right away, and then he told his sisters that I was doing all right. And so, I met them for breakfast for 45 minutes to an hour like that was it. And it was very slow, and it was on their terms.
Margaret 21:39
That is so important, Patrick, I’m so glad you said that, because I think that family members struggle with re unification after the bombs gone off and the person’s gone to treatment, it’s like there’s the wanting to be involved. Because one of the things we know is the people who love you love you, and they want you to be well, so you’ve got that going for you, but they’re also beat up, exhausted, stressed, worry filled, but I love that you went in slow. I’ve worked, as you know, many years in the treatment world, and many parents will get into a rehab center and be like, okay, I’m gonna be super parent now, and I’m gonna start disciplining, I’m gonna show up and I’m gonna get involved and like, you’ve got no credibility. Your disease has destroyed your credibility. You can’t go in hard like that, because they’re just going to be like, well, who are you to tell me?
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah 100 %.
Margaret: Somewhere along the line, you figured that out, or were given such good sound suggestions to go in slow and let them be in charge, which I think is beautiful and brilliant, because you’re allowing them to take risk, but not dive in too hard, and you’re not requiring of them to embrace you when they’re not ready.
Patrick Flanagan 22:45
Yeah, it didn’t I tried in that, in those three years where I was in and out and lying to people, and I tried to push it, and every time I did, it blew up in my face. There was one time I invited Charlie and Josie over to watch a Vikings game at my apartment in uptown, and they came over, and they knew something was off, and Josie opened up the fridge, and they were senior and junior in high school, and opened up the fridge, and I had left two, three or four Coors lights in the fridge, and Josie closed the fridge, looked at her brother, said, we’re out of here. Like so when I pushed it, and I wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t really sober. It just got worse,
Margaret 23:23
Right? So, what an amazing young woman to be able to look in the fridge, see it, and say, we’re gone.
Patrick Flanagan 23:29
Yeah? Oh, yeah,
Margaret 23:33
Patrick, wow, that’s brave and boundaried, and that’s hard for young people to do.
Patrick Flanagan 23:37
Josie’s, yeah? She’s a special. Yeah. She’s also the one who uninvited me to her high school graduation.
Margaret 23:46
You know who she uninvited, your disease. She don’t want it showing up.
Patrick Flanagan 23:50
And when I finally did my 9th Step amends with her, about a year and a half after getting sober, she said, Dad, I was never pissed at you. I was just pissed of the disease.
Margaret 24:05
Right. Beautiful. Thank God she knows that.
Patrick Flanagan 24:08
Yeah, and we’re closer. We’re closer than ever.
Margaret 24:13
So that’s huge, too, right? Patrick, to hear the hope, yeah, somebody can go to the lengths the disease takes them and the despair and the ugliness that it creates, but also with true hard work and recovery, not only on your side, it sounds like education, at least on their side, to understand it better.
Patrick Flanagan: Yep,
Margaret: Healing is happening.
Patrick Flanagan: 24:32
Yeah, I mean, I just got back from I was in London this weekend with my son. My daughter, Josie, is in Chicago. She calls me almost every couple days because she’s job interviewing right now, and my daughter, Julia, just 10 minutes ago, dropped off her laundry to do she just she’s at St Thomas. So yeah, it’s good. There’s hope.
Margaret 24:51
Isn’t it funny, we go from the extremes of the insanity of living in the disease and those little mundane things of dropping off laundry, coming over for a meal, for. Feel so amazing when you’ve lost so much.
Margaret: 25:03
Yeah, I mean, nine months of not seeing them, I’m not being a good dad and the disease just taken over. And so, yeah, those little things, I love it. I’ll do her laundry. Great. I you know,
Patrick Flanagan: It’s beautiful.
Margaret: Yeah, I get to see her. She’s in college, so I don’t get to see her all that often, but, but it is, you know, those little moments are the best, yeah, because I missed those for three years and that, and Julia, my sophomore, my 20-year-old, it is still a little bit of a struggle. There is some, you know, it’s been five years, but she, she lived with her mom throughout that whole process in those teenage years. And it’s not perfect, but it’s, it’s good.
Margaret 25:37
It’s never going to be better if we add alcohol or the ramifications, right?
Patrick Flanagan: No.
Margaret: Because I think that’s one of the other things that families worry a lot about, not think I know. What is it going to take for them not to stay in recovery like the moms may, in your case, being a father, the moms may puppeteer to try and keep the children from getting their hopes too high. And they don’t do it for malintent. They do it for survival, because it’s been such a painful experience, or there’s this belief of it can get better, but how long will it take, and how long am I willing to give it, and what’s it going to look like?
So, there’s a lot of factors in there. And to the families who sit and worry about, well, what if they relapse because of rejection from me? Well, then I guess they weren’t sober, right? Like there’s all these monkey chatter, I call it going on in the family’s process.
I think what you said earlier really puts a fine point on it. The type of alcoholic you were. triggers weren’t a thing. It was use under any circumstances.
Patrick Flanagan 26:42
No, I, you know, I had the obsession to drink, and the only way that I got past that did the 30-day stint set very good rehab facilities. And I have nothing negative to say about any of them. I just A, I wasn’t ready. And B, 30 days was not enough for me. And so finally, I stayed at the Retreat for 40 nights, and then I went to sober living for six months.
So, I stayed in structured living for almost seven months at age 45 and you know, sober house with 12 other dudes working at a car wash. But that’s what I needed to do. It just, I rarely see a 28-day fix and go back to a family environment. And it worked out just great. It just it’s too tough of disease, at least where I was at it needed a long-term solution.
Outro: Join me next week when I continue my conversation with Patrick Flanagan. Learn more about his great work on his website the Irishman & Associates.
Next time Patrick shares more about his transition from a sober house resident to founding a women’s sober living house emphasizing the need for structured family engagement in recovery programs.
Margaret 29:20
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
