Welcome back to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast!
In this episode, Patrick Flanagan, a recovering alcoholic, continues to share his powerful journey of sobriety, family healing, and advocacy in the recovery community.
Patrick opens up about the vital role of maintaining his AA program and community involvement to prevent relapse. He reflects on his family’s engagement in therapy, including his daughter Josie’s ongoing support, and how structured, family-centered recovery programs make a lasting impact. From living in a sober house to founding a women’s sober living home, Patrick’s journey is one of transformation, resilience, and purpose. Now pursuing a degree in healthcare administration, he is committed to improving recovery services and helping families navigate the complexities of addiction. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about healing, support, and the 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 the Embrace Family recovery Podcast. Today I am joined once again by Patrick Flanagan we continue his story this week with highlighting the importance of family involvement in recovery. From launching the Lion House Brownstone Women’s Recovery Residence which includes family recovery coaching as part of its program. Patrick has made it his mission to create a system where families heal alongside their loved ones with this disease. Let’s rejoin Patrick.
The Embrace Family Recovery
Margaret 01:27
So, with that awareness of the obsession and preoccupation and the disease of addiction that you had, did your wife or children ever make you drink?
Patrick Flanagan: No, no,
Margaret: Could they now?
Partick Flanagan 01:39
No, there’s nothing. No. I mean it not saying I couldn’t relapse now and I my drinking in those three years. I didn’t say I relapsed 10 times. I never got sober,
Margaret: Right?
Patrick Flanagan: So, I have actually got sober this time. Could anybody make me drink? No. I mean, the things that would make me drink is separation from my higher power, separation from my program of Alcoholics Anonymous, separation from the spiritual aspect of the program.
I mean, every single story I hear when somebody relapses starts almost the same way. Stop going to meetings, stop talking to my sponsor, stop hanging out with guys in the program. And then, I mean, it’s just every so I’m keenly aware of that, and that’s why, like I said, I have two home groups that I never miss if I’m in town. I do AA service work. I work in the industry, but I keep my program, and my work separate. I was told that early on by a guy at the retreat who works there, what we used to work there, Saul Ryan and he said, keep them separate. And I did, and I consciously do that to this day, is keep my program and my work separate. That’s what would cause me to go back out, is separation from my program.
Margaret 02:54
And I think that that cannot be said enough. Loud enough, often enough for family members to walk back from that cliff edge of being on high alert to understanding they cannot make someone use and they cannot make someone recover. It is not something that they have the capacity to do.
Speaking of recoveries from the family side, were your family engaging in anything to educate and get counseling or understanding for themselves? Was that something that they took part in or were offered?
Partick Flanagan 03:23
A little bit? Yeah, my daughters went to the Retreat’s evening or the family program the Retreat. My oldest daughter, Josie, got a lot out of it. I think, you know, I think that they went with their mother at the it was, we were going through a divorce at the time, so I’m not sure how engaged she was in the deal. But Josie got a lot out of that. Julia was a little young for it, I think, at the time.
And what I did when I did get sober about a year into it, I kind of forced all three of my kids to go to therapy three times. And I was like, You guys just go to therapy three times and see what you like. And Josie is still going to therapy three years later, the other two did it, and maybe they’ll go back. I exposed them to it
Margaret: Exactly,
Patrick Flanagan: you know, to try to get them exposure. They didn’t love it, but Josie really likes it, so, you know, I’m trying. I exposed them to it, and, yeah, they did some work. They didn’t do any Al-Anon or anything.
Margaret 04:17
Seeds have been planted. \
Partick Flanagan 04:18
Seeds. Yeah, exactly, right, yeah. So.
Margaret 04:21
Yeah. And I think that that’s huge, you know? I think the fact that your children were exposed, just like your intervention wasn’t what helped you get sober at the time, those interventions you’ve offered your children planted seeds. What they do with them is up to them, just like what you did with it was up to you, and it took you a little while to get to your own place of, okay, this is what I actually do need, and I’m willing.
Partick Flanagan 04:45
Yeah my children are, you know, they’re young adults. They’re 24,23 and 20 right? So, you can’t force them to do anything. You can expose them. You can share your experience like, kind of like my AA program. I can share my experience. They know my experience. I know that they’re comfortable coming to me if they have any problems themselves. So yeah, I exposed them and planted the seed.
Margaret 05:07
Yeah and continue to work your program out loud, which helps them see the impact of a program.
Partick Flanagan 05:13
Yeah? That was super cool. So, my son, he graduated Saint Thomas. He said, Dad, can I just move in with you for like, a month until I get, you know, settled, right? Well, he, he just moved out, like, a year and a half later, he lived with me. So, which was great. We got on great. It went well, but he saw this meeting I have at my house on Monday nights, every Monday night, at eight o’clock, you know, he 10, 12,14, guys would stream in, and he’d go to his room, and he saw that was engaged, and he saw,
Margaret: Awesome.
Patrick Flanagan: you know, we were doing the deal, so that was really cool. And you know, he subbed on our softball team a couple times. We played the sober softball league, and so, yeah, it was great. They know I’m engaged.
Margaret 05:52
Yeah, the other piece that’s great about it is your role modeling as a man to his son and your daughters too, that it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to let people help you. It’s okay to reach out for help. It’s okay to so many factors that go against societal expectation of how we show up in our families, as the patriarch of a family, right?
Partick Flanagan 06:13
Well, and I showed them what happens when you don’t right. They live through what happens when you don’t they saw the disaster that happens when, when you just internalize everything and make sure everybody else is happy and just they’ve seen both sides of it. So yeah, but it’s it’s good now, but it was bad for a while, and they saw that, and they lived through it. And we don’t forget it, but we don’t live in the past either.
Margaret 06:40
Right. So you’re in the sober house. You’re 45 which is uncommon at that point, probably, to be in the sober house. I can imagine you was running with all different people, but some youngers, you’re the car wash working. You were in the financial world. Where does the story go from there in recovery?
Partick Flanagan 06:56
Yeah, so I was in the sober house, and I was sharing a room at 45 years old in a sober house. And my roommate had a job in Stillwater, which is about a half hour 45 minutes, and he had to take like, five busses to get there. And I had a car. I had the blow and go like the starter from the DWI, but I had a car. So, I said, hey, why don’t I just take you in the morning and it was the first real piece of service work I’d ever done in my life, like where I just helped somebody that I didn’t really know, and without expecting anything in return.
And so, we go to we drive to work, and he was super appreciative. It saved him like, seven bucks on the bus, and like, a half hour /45 minutes every morning. So, it’s it was a good day. And then we had a little one on one, AA meeting on the way to his work. And, and it was just, I just got the bug for service work, right? That, you know, starting your day off, helping somebody else out, makes your day go pretty good.
Margaret: Right?
Patrick Flanagan: And so that was kind of how I got, you know, the service work. I started doing more a service work started going on a lot of 12 step calls. Step calls and pulling guys out of tough situations and helping them out and things like that. And then
Margaret 08:09
I need to stop you there. I can hear my family members in the background going, you’re what? You’re in early recovery. You’re pulling people out of dangerous places. How is that safe?
Partick Flanagan 08:17
Yeah,
Margaret: How does that work?
Patrick Flanagan: Never did it alone. First of all, that’s I remember we had one another 45-year-old in the sober house, disappeared one day, and we found out he was in a hotel room in downtown Saint Paul. So, three of us from the sober house went together, that is super important and went in and found him in a pretty rough state and got him to detox. And I remember being with my therapist the next day, or then a couple days later, and I and I my therapist asked me, are you hanging out with the winners in the AA, I said, I am, but this experience happened to me, and I said it was pretty crazy. And he said, yeah. He said, you’re looking at your disease from like a hot air balloon, and you’re seeing how quick and how fast and how bad it can get. And it was like a 40 it was a 45-year-old lawyer with a law practice went from having a pizza at the sober house to three days later, you know, in a really rough spot, and ended up in detox. And so doing that, that can go one way or another, you can that can suck you in, or it can show you Jesus, that happened quick and bad, and I don’t want that for me, and so I better continue on what I’m doing, you know, positive.
Margaret 09:35
And I think it’s good for families to hear this, because I think family members want to put you in bubble wrap and put you on top of this little, soft, safe space, because thinking that any stressors are going to cause you to use, and we’ve established already that nothing causes us to relapse go back to use unless we’re not working our program and using the tools of recovery. When it comes to service work, there is summers work that puts you in the front lines, and you see things and experience things. And I really appreciate what you just shared, which is, it was an opportunity to see where I would be you would be if you didn’t work your program. Yeah, you never want to see it on you know, anyone suffering like that. It’s not the ideal, but it helps you, if you look at it that way, to recognize there by the grace of my higher power, to go i It’s also, I heard you loud and clear, really important to use your network of recovery people when you are facing those types of situations, that you don’t go alone.
Partick Flanagan 10:31
Yeah, the odds aren’t great, right? The odds are taught in this in recovery. And if you’re in a house of 12 guys, in a sober house with 12 guys, there’s four or five doing the deal. There’s three or two or three that are probably going to relapse and struggle while you’re there. There’s two or three that you know may not be engaged and may be there because their parents want them to be there, their wives want them to be there. And there’s four or five guys that are doing the deal and engaged and want to be there. And I tell people, find those four or five guys, stick in that herd, get their numbers, call them, text them, stay in that loop, because those are the guys you want to hang out with and be part of. And if you start listening to the negative guys, they are complaining all the time about sober living and this and that, it’s just going to suck you into that bad mindset.
Margaret 11:18
Mm, hmm. Appreciate that too. I think it’s also just really good for you to share your story so that families out there can hear it and realize some of the worry, and fear, and powerlessness that they feel, the out of controlness that they feel. It’s not reinforced, but it’s like they get to see that in your journey as a recovering man, you have faced challenges and stayed sober because of the tools, because of the program, and that you can’t live in this world of being fully protected because you just never know what a trigger will be or what won’t be. So it’s more about living your life and recognizing that odds are not in Your favor. However, I’ve been told in the programs, if I work my program like my life depends on it, I have a life.
Partick Flanagan 12:06
Yeah, a couple things. You know, I from, from a family perspective, my ex-wife, she used to use the three C’s of Al-Anon, right? It didn’t cause it, can’t control it, can’t cure it. And it drove me nuts. I hated it back then, and now, I tell families that all the time, because they’re accurate, but yeah, the three C’s and are just they’re accurate for family members.
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Margaret 13:50
So, you work at the laundry. You’ve got this service part of your life happening. You’re starting to help people without expectation. You’re, driving them to Stillwater. How do we move forward to leave the world behind that you once were doing career wise to where you are now?
Partick Flanagan 14:08
Yeah, so help, good people and good advice. I found this house over in Como Park neighborhood of St Paul, right by the State Fairgrounds online, and I just went, drove over there and looked at it. I think it was an open house, and I walked through it, and I was like, oh my God, this would be a perfect sober house.
7200 square feet, eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and mint condition inside. A family had really taken care of it, but in a neighborhood of 2500 square foot homes, and there’s a 7200 square foot home, so there wasn’t much of a market for the home and been sale for a while.
So, I put together a little business plan for a sober house. And I was nine months sober, and I went to a gentleman, Tom Rostein, who is long term, recovered, AA member, and a very, very successful and very, very nice businessman from Minnesota. And I said to Tom, what do you think? And he went looked at it, and he signed the paperwork to get the loan from the bank and backed us. And so, he and I have been 50/50, partners on it. I do the work. And he he’s the bank. And so, we opened up, and we were walking through it, and I was dating a woman at the time, Tara Heald, and I’m still dating her now, and she’s a big part of the operation now. And she said, you got to turn this into a women’s sober house. And I was like, wow, I don’t know. I don’t know how I could do that. And then I went to Tom, and I said, what do you think? What do you think of that? And he said, yeah. He goes, there’s a huge need for that, because his daughter had struggled with an addiction, and she had been to multiple women’s sober houses that were really, really rough places. And so, we decided we’re going to turn it into a Women’s Sober Living House.
And the coolest part of that story is that now Tara has moved on and is running the Lion House Brownstone, which is our second home. And Clara, Tom’s daughter is running the Lion House, five or six years recovered and just killing it. She’s a PRS Peer Recovery Specialist in Minnesota, and she’s helps me with interventions too, and she’s just killing it. And so, it’s just the coolest part of the story, is that I have this team now of women that I do the businesses, I pay the bills and stuff like that and do some marketing. But the women that run those two houses are the are just amazing women.
Margaret 16:35
Nine months sober?
Patrick Flanagan: Nine months so, yeah.
Margaret: So, you know, the clinical hat from years ago are going okay, well, no major life changes in the first year of recovery. You know, we hear that a lot, and you dive in headfirst to a, not even a men’s sober house, but a women’s sober house.
Partick Flanagan 16:55
Yeah. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I think that what ignorance is bliss or something, or, you know, being ignorant.
Margaret 17:02
Maybe that early recovery optimism.
Partick Flanagan 17:06
Yeah, I mean something along the lines, or, you know, yeah, but I knew there was a need. There is yes, and I knew we had some passionate people. I knew I had surrendered. I’m not saying I couldn’t relapse or anything, that can happen at any time. But I knew I had surrendered, and I knew the obsession to drink was gone, so I was confident in that, and I knew that I don’t know, I just, I felt like I needed to help people, and I knew, you know, there’s 4000 Sober Living beds in the Twin Cities, and, you know, I probably wouldn’t really recommend more than a couple 100 of them. There’s some rough ones. And so, I wanted to set the standard and create a pretty cool atmosphere. And Tom’s daughter, Clara, had been through some rough places. Tara was willing to come on and really help build that place. And she did. And yeah, it’s just been, it’s been awesome and not easy.
Margaret 18:01
So, for families listening, I hope they heard what you said that was so powerful was that at nine months, you spoke to an elder, if you like, in the recovery world, but also a businessperson. You also have surrounded yourself by people who can be mentors and support people and then brought on a team. What it speaks to beautifully is the connections we make in the rooms that we just don’t know what they’re going to be one day because a lot of family members are like they’re going to hang out with a bunch of fill in the blank, and don’t understand those networks and those relationships and the support that is offered in the rooms and also around the rooms for potential jobs or help in other aspects. Has that been your experience all along?
Partick Flanagan 18:49
100% you know, 95% of the people I hang out with are in recovery. I go on trips with people in recovery. I went to I was two years sober. I got invited to go to Scotland with seven other guys from AA to go on to play golf for eight days. You know? It was awesome. One guy backed out. I ended up bringing my son with us, which was just totally wild. But, yeah, everybody hanging out with his in recovery, you know? I just, that’s my network now, and my old life is just, it’s funny, I used to be a member of a golf club, and I go back there, and I play about once or twice a summer, and every time I do, it’s just, I’m so grateful that I got out of that life because I was, I was drinking myself to death there and I’m so grateful that the people in recovery that I hang out with now, and I hang out with 25 year olds, 65 year olds. You know, it doesn’t matter. It’s just, that’s my people, that’s my crowd, that’s where I’m comfortable. And we do help each other out, whether it’s, you know, moving a couch or giving a ride or business advice or, yeah, I mean, all that stuff. School advice, you know, and things like that. It’s all part of it. And I love it.
Margaret 20:05
I don’t think families can appreciate that. And so I love that you’re openly sharing about it, so they understand that when they think they have to fix, managing, control, it’s such a falsehood taught to them by their disease, because if they give their loved one the room, the dignity and their recovery, wow, you know, they will have opportunities beyond what the family could do for them.
Partick Flanagan 20:27
Yeah, I mean, I, I totally, I think I always talk to families about, you know, you’re not a sober house manager, like.
Margaret 20:33
Or a counselor or a coach, right? Or there’s higher power.
Partick Flanagan 20:39
That’s a big one too, right? The higher power thing, you’re not their higher power and but when somebody either leaves treatment or leaves sober living to go back home, I always if I’m engaged with the family, I tell them, you know, you’re not a sober house manager. You’re not there to you’re not there to monitor a sober link or a breathalyzer or whatever like. If they’re going to drink at home, you call me and we’ll help, but you don’t get engaged on a daily basis with their recovery. It’s not going to work. It’s just going to create tension.
Margaret 21:08
Which leads me to one of the things that you’ve incorporated in your sober house. I probably before we go to that, because I’m excited about it. Let’s go back to explaining to the average person listening who’s probably been down this road or hasn’t for recovery. There’s, you know, inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, there’s all these levels of care. What would you say is a good definition of sober living in a sober house?
Partick Flanagan 21:32
Yeah, good definition, a six-month commitment to being present and living in a accountable sober living house with structure and communication with the family members. You know, it doesn’t have to be the Ritz Carlton, but it certainly has to be, you know, something that they’re proud to live in at least. I think it helps.
But really, it’s about the guys and gals who get engaged with the community in the sober house, who are, you know, the guys that I see relapse are the guys that show up 15 minutes before curfew and leave first thing in the morning and are never really part of it. And a lot of sober living allows you to do that. Good sober living, I think, adds structure to it, and accountability and meetings. And you know, we at the Lion House require three to four AA meetings, or any meetings a week. We require a sponsor. We require Tuesday night House dinner. We require a chore. You’re part of the house,
Margaret: Right?
Patrick Flanagan: So being part of again, part of AA, and then part of that specific house is a real big part of it. So, when I if I’m talking to family members, I encourage them to let them be engaged with the house. Don’t call them back. You know, if it’s in town, you know, they can go home on the weekends and go see their kids sporting events or whatever, but they also need to spend time at the house and be present and be engaged with the other guys or gals and with the senior peers and with the managers, who are usually always people in recovery right to learn and to be engaged. So, it’s just an engagement commitment, and we always ask for a minimum of six months. We’ve had a lot of gals with success stay with us a year plus, but the time heals, I think, in recovery and engagement and family members, we do have a pretty extensive family engagement on our brownstone property, and we have some family engagement on the other one too. That’s a big part of it.
Margaret 23:36
And that’s what was exciting. Another piece of why I wanted to speak with you, because you’re doing something that I think is pretty atypical in that you have a family recovery coach who works with your women and their families while in sober living, which I am so excited about because one of my pet peeves having been in the treatment world, I’m very familiar with it. You have someone go through treatment 30 days, if they’re in long term care, 60/90, right? The family get invitation to a family program, which can be one day, to three days, in person, online, depending on where they are, if that and then they’ll get a call with a progress report. If there’s a release of information, they’ll hopefully get a call on discharge if the release of information is put out, but the frustration with family not getting it, in my humble opinion, is because family haven’t been given it. They haven’t been given the tools, the exposure, the resources to know how to do this different because they haven’t had support and education and resources given to them, like the person who’s in treatment has been given.
So, to hear you doing that is phenomenal. Like, kudos to you and your organization for bringing Lori, isn’t it? Laurie, who’s doing it?
Patrick Flanagan: Laurie Healy, yeah,
Margaret: Yeah, it’s such a great thing. So. Tell families about that, because that is not typical in sober living.
Partick Flanagan 25:03
No, I, you know, I don’t know anybody who’s doing it, but we, we learned it from the first line house that, you know, we were spending a ton of time with the family members typically at that property, it was typically parents. You know, we got a lot of younger people at that property. It’s a more moderately priced, it’s $925, a month. So, we were getting a lot of younger people and spending a ton of time with the families, the moms and the dads. When we looked at that and we opened up the brownstone, it’s a smaller property. There’s only five guests in there, six bedroom in the basement for our staff member. But we looked at that, it got to do some family engagement, and I’d met Laurie before, and was blown away with what she did. And we really learned that, you know, I think, especially for women’s recovery and his trauma and family, like getting at the trauma with a good therapist and good support team is super important for the individual,
Margaret: Yeah,
Patrick Flanagan: getting that family to do that work is super important. So yeah, we baked it into our whole program, and we made it required. It’s not an option. We’re not all at cart. And so, some people, we’ve gotten a lot of calls in our first year of being open, saying, you know, we’re not cheap either. We’re $8,500 a month to live there. And then, knowing that’s an investment. What I look at that is, you know, $50,000 for a six-month commitment, when some of these treatment centers are 50 grand for 30 days, and you’re getting the, what you just said, is not a ton of engagement on the family side.
So, I talk to families a lot, and they say, well, hey, can we, can we do it cheaper if we don’t do the family program? And I said, you can, but not with us. We’re requiring it. We want all the women not only to engage with their families, but then to engage with themselves, that they’re all doing the same program. And so, Laurie and Tara have this amazing system where basically the guest walks in and goes with Tara, and Tara’s the personal recovery coach for that guest and works one on one with that guest daily, almost during the week, and is on call. But then the family goes with Laurie,
Margaret: Right?
Patrick Flanagan: Does all the family work? The genograms, the boundary work, all of that stuff. And then after about a month or so, every family is a little different, but usually about a month, they come together for a family meeting, and we have a membership at the Coven Women’s co working space here in St Paul we do a lot of that at sometimes they actually do it at my house here, if that’s not available. But then the families come together, and kids and husbands and significant others, parents, and I gotta tell you, there hasn’t been one of those first meetings with the families, and I’m not in there, but I get all the reports, and that the family hasn’t said, we’ve never done anything like this.
And most of our guests so far to date, all of them really have been women who have been to multiple treatments and never did sober living but had never done any this family work. And so, it’s just, it’s, yeah, it’s super impactful. You know, we’re on our we’re kind of on our second we’ve been open a year, so we’re on our second kind of wave of guests right now. And in the first wave, we not only did the family work, but then we did, you know, what is going home look like? Laurie and Tara worked with everybody in the family about what his home look like now. What are the boundaries? What’s the relapse plan, if that happens? And so, yeah, the family engagement, Laurie and Tara have just a they have a really good team effort. And with the families, it’s pretty cool stuff.
Margaret: It’s beyond cool.
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah, I, I’m, yeah.
Margaret 28:41
It’s beyond cool. It is because we call it a family disease in the world, and sadly, we don’t give much more than crumbs to family, and it’s a setup for both sides of the journey, because the need to understand what the disease has done to each of us and how we survive in it, and what survival skills have served us, but need to be let go of and now how to get through this, moving forward when the fear is so prevalent, and the worry and to have somebody there in a parallel experience while their loved ones getting the healing and support and help they can get theirs, it’s just fantastic.
Partick Flanagan 29:22
Yes, sometimes it’s a tough some families, they just want to send their loved one to treatment for 30 days. You fix them, send them back to us. And that doesn’t it just doesn’t work, right? We, we both know that and so we’ve had families say, well, can my wife live at your sober house but I don’t want to do the family program. And we turn people a little people away because we’re like, no, that’s not, you know, there are other places and we’re just, we’re just really passionate about that, the family aspect of it, and we think.
Margaret 29:51
And I hope you hold that always, Patrick, because I think that is so dignity filled for everyone involved in. And the resistance that family shows come from a place of incredible love, a lot of fear, trauma history, usually of what’s gone on in the family, and a little bit of pissed offness, which comes in the door sometimes first. But under all of that is love and hurt and fear. And so, if we can let that person come in, even if they’re pissed, at least they’re showing up.
And I used to get a lot of backlash when I worked in extended care. I worked on Jellinek for a significant amount of time before that closed. If you’re familiar with it, Ed visitor. And I would get, you know, families calling me. So how many meetings are they going to go to when they leave, and how much they’ve been doing this and I’d be like, Alright, so how are you and how’s Al-Anon going for you?
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah.
Margaret: They weren’t too happy with me, and that’s okay. I would just say, you know, one of the best things that I can say it, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but there is such a thing as healthy manipulation, and you want your loved one to get well, dive into your own recovery program, live it out loud, and I assure you that will have a bigger impact than ever telling them what to do or not to. And families are like, what are you talking about? I don’t want to go to some stupid meeting down in a cold night down the road and sit with a few people who are telling their sob stories, and I’m like, hmm, ever hear that from your loved one who’s struggling with addiction?
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah, right.
Margaret: We gotta suit up all of us.
Partick Flanagan 31:33
I learned a good little one, an interventionist who’s been doing it a lot longer, and I have told me one time we were talking about, you know, get asked to do interventions for free, sometimes just for families that just can’t afford our fees. And I asked him, How do you handle that? And he says, I tell the families to go to three Al-Anon meetings and then call me.
Margaret: I agree
If they’re willing to do that. I’m willing to help. And if they’re not, I don’t. And I’m like, wow a that’s a good one,
Margaret 32:01
Great one. It’s great one. So how did the guy that sat in the back of the room pissed off? And I can just picture you at Bigelow, we might have been there at the same time. I can picture you at the back of that room steaming, just sitting there, biding your time after an intervention. How does one go from that experience to now being person who does interventions?
Partick Flanagan 32:19
Yeah, you know. So, I started doing a lot of cool 12 step work, and I was told I was pretty good at it. And then my mentor, who did the intervention on me, is a gentleman. His name is Bill Teuteberg, and he’s been doing interventions for probably 35 years. And, and he just said, well, you should hang your own shingle. And, I was like, wow, all right, he’s telling me, and he’s been doing this a long time.
And I so I called around. I said, what does a good interventionist need if you want to be, you know, registered or whatever. They said the CIP is the best you can do. So, I dug into that, and I ended up getting my CIP, Certified Intervention Professional through the State Board of Pennsylvania, put together a website. And then I just, I started doing some for free. I just started doing it to get better at it and to get the word out, and its big-time word of mouth business. And then I started to work a lot with the folks at the Retreat, and I had to earn that, though. And they thought, you know, he’s got two years sober. He was here, and he’s kind of a mess, three years ago, I do an intervention, and if I was did it for a local and I brought a lot of people to the retreat. I would show up on Sundays, on visiting day, and I’d visit the folks that I took to the Retreat.
And the staff at the retreat was like, wow, that’s different. How many interventionists are like showing up later. And so, I’d be out there almost every Sunday and seeing guys and talking. And then so the retreat started, you know, that’s good, and, you know, that’s, that’s different. And so, they’d give my name on a little bit, you know. And then I just started doing more and more, and I got known in my little AA circles as working and doing interventions, so that that got the word out, and it just kind of snowballed. It took a while. It took a couple years, really, to get to where I was, you know, actually paying my bills, but I was passionate about it.
And then the sober house, the women’s sober house, you know, that was an easy call to make to treatment centers. Hey, we opened up a beautiful women’s. They’re like, oh my God, we don’t have any. There aren’t many out there. And that took a while to get rolling, but once that got my name in front of a lot of treatment centers, and then my mentor, Bill would give my name out a lot. He’s now spends a lot of time in Florida, so sometimes he would give some cases to me to help out. And it just spiraled and snowballed, and it became, now, it’s a fairly busy practice. I don’t have many down weeks anymore.
Margaret 34:48
Again, that networking and connection, right?
Partick Flanagan 34:51
Networking, connection. And then I went back to grad school a couple years ago, and I actually I graduate Friday, two days from now, so and.
Margaret: Congratulations.
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah, I wanted to learn the business side of healthcare, because I think that the recovery industry could use some business stuff and sense. And so, I went to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and they have a Master of Healthcare Administration, and I get my degree on Friday. So, I’ve been doing that for years, too. And again, it’s been networking, and it’s been I did my capstone project on a proposal for an older adult Treatment Center. I’m a big believer that that we need more older adult treatment centers that are focused on healthcare, the health, physical health, of older adults with addiction and alcoholism, but then the aftercare plans and things like that for older adults, because I’m getting more and more calls from people in their 40s about Mom and Dad.
Margaret 35:50
Do you see value in interventionists, having people who work with the families through the intervention process.
Patrick Flanagan: Yeah
Marg]aret: I know that there’s a lot of stress. You know? I get the calls from families who are trying to do the intervention themselves or end up getting an interventionist, and they tell me, you know, I’ve had this chat and that chat, but I just feel like I need somebody to talk to, because otherwise I’m calling the interventionist, and they’re busy with my person. What’s your thoughts on that?
Partick Flanagan 36:25
Yeah, I mean, it’s a real team effort for us now, you know, I have Tara as part of the team. Clara is part of the team. Laurie and I have talked about, you know, working in because she’s studying the, you know, she’s a CRAFT certified family recovery coach and but she’s also studying the on a blank the family intervention style that’s out there more of a
Margaret 36:52
I know exactly what you’re thinking of.
Partick Flanagan 36:54
Non-confrontational, but invite only style. So, yeah, it’s a total team. I mean, I spend more time on the phone with families than I do, especially once I get the person to treatment like it doesn’t stop. I only take I have a little bit different practice. I only take on, you know, four or, let’s say, four to six clients at a time. I take it on it’s usually, I do an intervention, and then I have a three-month deal with the families, because I’m really involved with or at treatment. I’m really involved with the aftercare plan, because I’m super passionate about the sober living and the aftercare being a big part of it, and I think that that’s part of the whole process. So, I am on the phone with families constantly. But my practice is starting to get busy, and Tara and Clara and Laurie and Matt. I just come on as a therapist, right, starting to build a team, because you’re right, you’re 100% right with your line. You know where you’re going with it. It is, especially if it’s a big family, it’s, yeah, it’s a lot, because everybody’s involved and everybody needs help. I do have good relationships with three or four therapists in the Twin Cities, where I tend to try to get the families to see to get engaged in therapy right away. So that helps. But, yeah, it’s a big part of it.
Margaret 38:12
It is, and it’s, you know, one of the things I’m grateful for Patrick is that you see that and you, I mean, first of all, like hearing you stay with someone for three months through the treatment is wonderful, because I know of other interventionists who sadly bring them in and then sort of drop the ball unless a crisis happens and the family calls them, and that breaks my heart, because I know that interventions can be very expensive, and I think that family deserves some support, and so when I hear you have a team around them and referrals and resources that’s fantastic. And also, what you’re doing in your sober houses just makes me very happy.
Partick Flanagan 38:49
Well, you’ll have to, next time you’re in the cities, you’ll have to come check it out.
Margaret 38:52
I would love to do that. I also need to say to those listening that Patrick’s location is pretty sweet too, because you’re in Minnesober.
Partick Flanagan 38:59
Yes, it, you know, and that that is a huge thing. It this, me, is it’s just different.
Margaret 39:09
It is
Partick Flanagan 39:10
January 2. We’re part of a team of other organizations that are sponsoring Wild Recovery Night. So we, last year, we had 1200 people for an AA meeting before a hockey game, which is just amazing, right? And, and so we have sober hockey, we have sober softball, we have sober soccer. I know sober we have all these events, and now all these meetings, and all this community and you can’t walk into a coffee shop in Saint Paul and not see a Big Book, you know, people talking about AA whatever it’s ingrained in this community, and it’s just amazing.
Margaret 39:50
It is amazing, and it’s one of the beautiful things about my time there that I so appreciate, because I go to other communities and there’s recovery in those communities. But it’s not like it is in Minnesota.
Partick Flanagan 40:01
Right, yeah. I mean, it just like people always sometimes, well, how do I get a job in early recovery? I mean, you walk down Grand Avenue and you get a job at the hardware store, the coffee shop, the clothes they’re all familiar with, hiring people in recovery in this community and the meetings are just every day, everywhere I, you know, every there’s a meeting within a mile in my house every day, you know. So, it is a great community, really. It people from other parts of the country just don’t, don’t, don’t see. It’s cold. I gave them that what we do, we embrace the cold and there’s just, and part of that community too is like, there’s so many cool people who work in recovery, there’s so many passionate people.
Margaret 40:46
I agree, and I thank you for your recovery, for your service, for your passion, and I thank you for being able to talk openly about not only your journey in recovery, but your family experiences, and how hard those were, but also the hope and the healing that’s coming from them. Because I know the listeners will be really grateful to hear that, because they fear that that won’t be the case if they’re still out there struggling, you know.
Partick Flanagan 41:11
Yeah, no, I I’m all In. I love it.
Margaret 43:05
Outro: Thank you to Patrick Flanagan for taking the time to share your inspiring journey with us and for the work you continue to do on your recovery journey through your team’s intervention services at The Irishman & Associates and the stellar recovery residences for women through The Lion Brownstone. Patrick, I appreciate your mission to include the families in the recovery journey. Thank you for being a part of this podcast.
Don’t forget to come back next week for another solo episode of Moments With Margaret.
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.
