Opioid settlement grant helping Twin Cities organization stop addiction before it starts

Pam Lanhart knows what it’s like to love someone struggling with addiction and believes strongly that connection, not punishment, is key to recovery. This is a key principle of her organization,  Thrive Family Recovery Resources.

“We disrupt the narratives around powerlessness, rock bottom, and tough love,” said Lanhart, who founded the organization in 2016, as a result of the lack of resources and awareness she felt while navigating her son Jake’s addiction and recovery. In 2021, Jake passed away from a fentanyl overdose during a 36-hour return to use.

“The reason why I’m so passionate is that had we known, had we taken some of these action steps when he was younger, it’s possible his substance use may not have progressed.”

This year, Thrive was awarded funds from the Washington County opioid settlement. The $37,348 award is being allocated toward two workshops in Thrive’s Strengthening Families Program, designed to support families with risk factors.

Lanhart recalls getting so many mixed messages while trying to help her son Jake, who went to an inpatient program at Hazelden Betty Ford Treatment Center when he was 15 years old. She recalls the ‘tough love’ ideology playing a major role in the guidance offered. The punitive measures like taking away the phone, taking the door off their room, or even kicking them out of the home didn’t sit right with Lanhart. “There’s this message of powerlessness, that there’s nothing you can do, and families should detach. As mothers, this doesn’t feel normal or natural at all.”

As is the case with many loved ones, Lanhart was labeled as co-dependent, something she says would never happen if her son suffered from other diseases, like cancer or diabetes. “If I want them to have sterile needles and naloxone, I’m an enabler. We’re told the addiction is a disease and the family is as sick as the individual with the disease,” Lanhart added.

The first of the two Strengthening Families workshops took place in March with four graduating families and a solid foundation to build from. The program is designed for children between the ages of 7 and 17 and their parents or guardians. All of the families had risk factors for addiction, including single-parent homes or families who were first-generation immigrants.

Lanhart says both parents and kids felt more connected through activities during the workshop and at-home assignments like “my time,” in which parents carve out 10 minutes of individual time with each child every day. Weekly family meetings and regular mealtimes were also homework.

The idea behind Strengthening Families is to stop addiction before it starts. When Lanhart applied for the grant from Washington County, she quoted the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, “Why are we pulling people out of the river? Why are we not looking upstream to see why they are going in in the first place?”

Strengthening Families exists for this very reason: to create and foster the one thing proven to kill addiction and even stop it before it starts: connection.

The second workshop is set for this fall. “There were a lot of really great things we learned, and we will look at making it better and more robust, engaging more of the community with additional lead time,” Lanhart added.  

The workshops are just part of the programming at Thrive, which works to support families and people who care for a loved one struggling with addiction using evidence-based strategies to build the connection that beats addiction. “When family members respond compassionately, not with conflict, chaos, and shame, the outcomes are improved,” Lanhart said.

Grants, like the one from Washington County, are critical to this work. “We’re bootstrapping everything,” Lanhart explained. “There are no billable services for what we do, we rely on donors and grants to keep moving.”

Learn more about Thrive Family Recovery Resources, its Strengthening Families Program, one-on-one family support, group meetings, events, and additional services at: https://www.thrivefrr.org