(soft music) - [Patrick] I remember as a kid being out in the backyard with my dad on a quilt, and it was beautiful out, and I looked up and I saw all the stars and I just knew that there was something really big out there.

I had the sense of awe, and I think it was the fundamental sense of God.

And it just felt good.

That feeling of just being safe, secure, loved.

And I wanted more of that.

(soft music) - He was born 30 minutes before my 13th birthday.

So we have a wide separation there.

He was always real sweet child.

Had those deep brown eyes that just really did draw you in and listen to you.

And of course he was always a straight A student.

So that was a point of pride.

A bright kid, an incredibly bright kid.

- When he was a little boy, he was very loving.

He was always agreeable with everything anybody wanted do.

He would come right along with it.

He was always ready, willing, and able to join in and help somebody.

- One of the things he often did that was not my favorite thing, was if I had a guy come to pick me up, he'd call him just any old name.

He'd be like, "Hey Bill," or, "Hey John," and I'm like, "Shh, be quiet."

That was my date last night, don't tell him that.

(Peggy laughs) (soft music) - When he was a child in elementary school, and then on a junior high, et cetera, was also the time where my father's career in life was taking off on a really fast trajectory.

He was busy and it was demanding.

And that, especially at the very beginning, when he started his company, he was out on the field all the time.

So much of the time, and way into the night.

He'd be gone for days at a time.

- His dad was a very powerful and a very strong man in Midland, Texas, in the United States actually.

Jack Brown, which was one of the greatest icons in Midland, and in the oil industry.

- My folks were good, loving, safe home, but I grew up raising myself.

- Patrick probably was also in his activities and doing stuff, and daddy wasn't always there.

I know that they both had things in common.

I know daddy was always extremely proud of Patrick with his academic achievements.

- Loving in distant.

I knew he loved me, but he just didn't have the time.

- Everybody felt a vacancy when we couldn't be with daddy or he was out busy doing things.

And then of course also as the work got more and more demanding, he was gone a lot.

It was important work that he was doing.

He was growing a business and it was an exciting time.

It was an exciting time for all of us because we were enjoying some of the things that were happening from all that too.

I think it was hard for us to get everything done with daddy that would like to, and often when he came in, mother had a list for him of the things to deal with, as you can imagine.

That's just the time when there was not enough time for all that was going around.

- My dad wasn't around, my mom was busy and my mom whenever I'd take stuff to her, she'd kind of get all bothered and upset and worried.

And so, okay, note to self, I'll deal on this myself.

And so I learned to try to just cope on things as best I could.

Well, if I tried real hard and if I didn't make any mistakes maybe I would get some more of that good feeling.

Maybe I would feel loved and accepted.

And so I got into this deal of being a perfectionist.

And I think that even went on to my relationship with God, 'cause I'd grown up in church, I thought he was good, but very scary.

In my head, I knew what I was supposed to do, and I better do it perfectly, because if I don't there will be punishment.

And it was up to me to be real good and to not cause any trouble.

- That was the main thing for him.

He wanted you to help somebody and he was always agreeable and always wanting to just say the right thing and do the right thing.

- And it got me through.

I did good in school, I had friends, but I never felt like I fit in.

Always kind of felt alone.

I didn't really know what it was then, I knew I just didn't feel right.

Whenever I wound up being old enough to start having my first drinks and stuff, it was a magic elixir.

All of a sudden I felt like I fit in, and I liked the feeling, the ease and the comfort.

I liked the feeling of magic, Somewhere back in my mind I thought, well, maybe if I was part of that world, maybe I could be part of dad's world too.

(soft music) My first drink's probably about 12 or 13, but I really didn't start having drinks like on the weekends until I was in high school.

But it was never really a problem.

Had a few drinks, and not a big deal.

- Back in those days, if you didn't drink, kinda you were the problem.

In Midland, Texas, I mean, in high school, we were going to all the parties where the parents gave the senior parties, you have bars set up.

And then in 1980 we were in the Old Field.

Pat's dad told him, and my dad told me the same thing.

If you're not gonna drink and get out of the Old Field.

That was just the way it was.

- If went out, somebody pushed him a drink in front, he'd drink it.

So I guess that was the beginning.

- Pat has graduated number one from Midland High School, A&M, very high in his class, had honors.

Phenomenal petroleum engineer, very smart.

- Graduated top of my class.

It's not like it caused problems.

I didn't have any problems with the law.

Through college I would drink, a little bit on the weekends and everything.

And I'd had a time where I was actually pursuing God back then.

I was in some Bible studies and was really trying to walk on that path and I was enjoying it.

But then all of a sudden I had kind of a breakup period with the girlfriend, and so it kind of came up of, okay, well, so I can either do two things.

I can either pursue sex, drugs, and rock and roll or I can pursue God.

Ah, I put God up on the shelf.

And I went out to pursue my sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Probably what started causing me some problems was is still the marijuana.

Because at that point whenever I moved off campus, I was smoking daily.

It was hard for me to get a hold of the marijuana.

And so I would drink, and all of a sudden it became a daily thing.

And then things went on, wound up getting married, having kids, and I was drinking and smoking every day.

- I loved going out with Pat because he's the only one that could drink, like I could drink.

We loved meeting up at some of the bars and for every drink I would drink he could drink, which is very unusual 'cause I enjoyed my cocktails.

- Somehow, rather, I think that became an issue with my wife and my family.

I didn't know really anything about addiction at that point.

I thought, well, she just doesn't love me anymore.

- I think I became more aware of the seriousness of the problem at the end of his marriage.

And I was beginning to notice some of the signs of addiction - We were living in Austin at the time, came to Midland, was working here with my dad and did not feel loved.

And so well, if anybody loved me, that's better than what I've had before.

- When he was living here in Midland, and I was here for like the Christmas holidays, he was not participating in a lot of the stuff with the family.

And his wife being, "I don't know where he is.

I think he's gonna be here, but I don't know, he's light."

But he's not showing up for stuff, that she's worried that he's with someone else.

- I left, went through a divorce, got into ex-wife number two, and then all of a sudden cocaine came involved, wound up using and would use like four grams, stay up all night long, and then all of a sudden it's dark, it started dawning, and then you'd hear the birds sing.

And its, oh, no, I've been up all night and I've gotta try to go to work.

And it was misery, absolute misery.

And I tried to quit, tried to get it out of the house and it kept coming back.

And I said, well, maybe I just throw myself into, if you can't beat them, join them.

And things just got worse and worse.

And I was feeling a whole lot of pain from leaving my kids behind.

It was so hard on them, so hard.

And that's where I came with my first date with the shotgun.

I finally decided I can't beat this thing.

There's no where to go.

I'm useless to my kids.

I'm useless to everybody.

I'm disappointing my parents, I'm disappointing me.

There's no where to go.

And so I said, okay, well I'm up all night anyways.

How about if I drink a bottle of rum, maybe that'll give me enough courage to take the shotgun and walk out in the field.

And I got down to that final sip and it was just about showtime.

And all of a sudden I had this vision.

I saw myself huddled up in the dark, just outside this wall of light, and there was this figure on the other side with his hand out right to the edge of the light.

And I knew if I just reached out, he would take it.

But I was in too much shame, too much pain and I couldn't move.

And all of a sudden I had this thought, what if I take my life and I'm frozen in this feeling for eternity?

That I wouldn't get relief.

It wouldn't be fire and brimstone.

What if I felt like I felt right here?

And I shut down, the breakers flipped.

I went to bed and next morning, got a call from my mom.

"Do you wanna get some help?"

- He was about to kill himself that very day, and mother made a phone call at like seven in the morning.

Not knowing that she was saving his life at that exact moment, holding his life.

And said, " Patrick, we're here to help you."

- There's always someone there to help you.

Don't ever feel that you're alone.

- I talked to mother the night before about where he could go.

We were discussing the place close to me as a possibility.

And I said, mom, I don't know.

You and dad have to do this.

And I know you don't know where you're going, but know that we don't know either.

We're gonna find that together.

If you can just get him here, and even right now it just fills me up with amazement that that coordinated the way it did.

It was amazing.

- I started my first treatment center.

And back then a treatment center usually meant, it was a ward in a psychiatric hospital.

And so I went and spent a couple of months down in a psychiatric hospital.

But that's where I got introduced to recovery.

I'm so grateful that there was a place to go, and there were people that were there to actually be willing to help me.

And then when I went into some of the rooms and I heard the people talk, I said, oh my God this is where I fit in.

These people were like me.

And I was very grateful for that.

I first entered in to the recovery world, January 12th, 1990.

And I've had a lot of re-occurrences of use, what we used to call relapse, where I fell out of remission.

- I love the fact that he would go back, that he would go back.

And I always saw that as helpful.

- I've been in and out, in and out.

I would go into remission in my disease and be enjoying my sobriety, and then all of a sudden I'd be uncomfortable, and my head said, just one more time, just one more time.

You know where to go, you can come back on Monday.

And so I would use, and then it owned me.

I could not choose when I came back.

And so I'd be out for a while until I hit another bottom.

And so here we go again.

And for me, it's like dancing with the gorilla.

Once you start a dance with a gorilla it's not over 'til the gorilla says it is.

(soft music) - You go through trials and tribulations of your drinking and parting, and then it's fun until it's not fun.

We were going through our addictions of alcohol together, and we just kinda had that sacred ground at the bar where we would go and drink and enjoy each other.

And I wouldn't give him any problems.

He didn't give me any problems.

We had plenty of that at home.

We were drinking buddies.

The last thing I wanted him to do is feel like he had a problem, 'cause I wouldn't have a drinking buddy anymore, you know, or I did.

I mean, I know how sick it's sounds, but we had a lot of laughs and it was definitely fun until it wasn't fun anymore.

I remember one morning he called and I went to pick him up in the morning.

We were sitting in the car and we were talking about it, and we've gotta do something.

One of those days, everybody's had them, you wake up in the morning and you're sitting on the curb, and you're going, I can't believe I did that.

That was one of those days that I can't continue.

I've lost all respect from everybody.

Pat said, I don't like the way people look at me now.

And I go, I don't either.

He said, it's something in their eyes now.

And I go, I know.

And that was probably the deciding factor.

And we actually started going to AA together.

And I think he's been sober since there and I didn't.

- I have been sober uping without any kind of a chemical to change the way that I felt since June 12th, 2005.

(soft music) - There's a fallacy of thinking people who have money have it easy.

No, they have it harder.

Especially when they're getting sober and getting clean.

And he had the money.

And that was where I really admire him for pulling up.

I wouldn't have, I would've continued, but he chose not to.

I think that shows tremendous amount of strength.

- He's determined.

And it's almost with fierceness.

To be where he needs to be and to do what he needs to do to make this succeed.

And there is a veracity to it that is there and I love it.

It makes me very proud.

It makes me very proud of him, it does.

It's hard to say that without a lot of emotion.

- I'm very proud.

I'm very very proud of what he's trying and what he's accomplishing.

- No, we're not supposed to have regrets, but of course I have regrets.

And I certainly hate that my kids suffer.

I wished I could have been more present there for them.

Even though I was drunk and high, I still was helping take care of them.

I was always playing with them.

They always knew they were loved.

- I always thought that he parented very well when he was with them face-to-face.

He was a wise parent in that situation.

There of course, looking back for times that he wasn't there or didn't show, or wasn't even payig attention.

- I've been able to come clean with my kids and talk to them.

And they don't hold any grudges or resentments towards me.

And they can kinda see that I was doing the best that I could with what I had.

They don't hate me for it.

They love me, and that's a wonderful feeling.

(soft music) - [All] God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.

- I think, in his life now, he gets to show who the true Pat is.

He's actually has got enough peace about him now.

And I think that's what Pat has always lacked.

Is the peace and the confidence within himself.

- Fundamentally, I didn't know I was lovable and acceptable just because I am.

I thought somehow or rather I'd had to perform.

And at the core of my vulnerability to my disease and to others was my own self loathe in my lack of being able to love myself.

One of the biggest things that happened, this was in one of my treatment center experiences, I woke up one morning, it was bright and early probably about 4:30 or 5:00.

And I came out of sleep and all of a sudden my head was quiet, which of course we know never happens.

And in the midst of all this quiet, I heard, "I love you.

I accept you."

And it was quiet for a few moments.

And then I said, oh my God, that's God talking to me.

And I didn't know how much I needed that.

And he was telling me how much he loves me.

And I found that he's there waiting for us and ready to meet us right where we are.

That there is nothing we could ever do that would change his feeling of love for us.

Nothing that could not be forgiven.

We do have a loving God that has designed us to live and to thrive.

(soft music) - I had the prejudice that addicts or alcoholics even are people that are desolate, and under the bridge, panhandling, you know there's certain stereotype, but come to find out, it doesn't discriminate against anybody.

And he is prime example.

You see this guy and you don't think addict, you think that he's very successful, had anything and everything at his fingertips and still had something blocking him off from God.

- There's not a family alive that is not touched by addiction.

I can't imagine that anybody would be aptus enough to think it wasn't in their family.

Of course it's in your family, it's everywhere.

- Everyone has some kind of addiction.

But I see a lot of my friends having to live the rest of their life with all the trash that life put on them.

And they don't have to.

- For me, and for a lot of us asking for help was a major obstacle.

Is something that we were told that we take care of ourselves.

We pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and we don't ask for help, that's weak.

- 'Cause once you go, you're kinda showing everybody, "Hey, I've got a problem."

It's like a mop head, it's okay if nobody sees you driving it.

I mean, look, you don't come in to these recovery programs if you win the lotto, you know what I mean?

You come in 'cause things aren't going real good.

- Asking for help takes a great amount of courage and a great amount of strength.

And it is the starting point of actually growing up and being a full person.

- It's the most important thing ever.

You've got to find a way to be heard.

And how healing it is to share with others.

- It takes work, it takes a lot of work.

It is hard taking out your trash in front of people.

But I can help somebody but telling them my story.

- Be willing to go to that place.

Trying to think that you can get by with that old wound locked up, is like keeping a dragon in the basement.

You're never gonna be away from it.

And it will cause problems, it'll cause re-occurrence, it'll cost going back.

You have to be willing to go there to go to your source of greatest pain for your source of healing.

(soft music) - Part of recovery is finding the person that you resonate with, finding people that you resonate with, and becoming more like them.

If you wanna become a mechanic, you hang out with mechanics.

You wanna know about recovery, hang out with people in recovery.

The culture that we have at Thriving United is a family culture.

It helps normalize and put a picture and see, "Oh, this is what a family looks like, okay."

- Being in an environment, a recovery environment, is so important and so helpful for people whenever they're first coming into recovery.

There's actually been studies that people who are living in like a recovery residence environment have an 87% chance of making it beyond their first year of abstinence.

Somebody without that has maybe about a 10% chance.

- It opens a door of freedom.

And it's a freedom that for myself I didn't even know the name of the chain that was holding me back until I found freedom, the freedom that recovery gave me.

Before I found recovery, I just thought I was losing my heart.

That everything was being drained from me, and I didn't know why.

I was freed from that chain.

Recovery wasn't just about drugs and alcohol, recovery really is about learning a new way of living.

That's so freeing.

It's a new life that I didn't even know could possibly exist.

- I would love to give the gift to the older people like me that are 50 years old, 60 years old, the gift of recovery.

- Recovery is just my medicine, that's all it is.

To help keep me spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes even physically well.

- At the recovery center what he has done, is let everyone share who they are.

And now you got a 64-year-old man who actually gets to take out all his luggage, all of my trash and enjoy my kids and my grandkids.

And it's because of what Pat Brown has set up.

It really is.

- I want people to have places to come, where they can get connected to where we can connect you to other people that can be help for you.

To give you a place where you can give back and you can help others.

And you can let others help you.

- You're not gonna get sober unless you're ready to get sober, period.

- I get it, I've been there.

I don't know when it's going to click.

Today might be your day, but it might be tomorrow.

Is don't give up.

- I think that's what's going to keep you going.

Is the part that says, well, we'll do it again.

Let's try it again.

That didn't work so well last weekend, but I want this to happen.

I want it to be better.

I want it to be better for them, but I want it to be better for me too.

- Different people have different paths that they're on.

For me, I was a person and my disease came in and out of remission for 15 years.

- I got my airplane license when I was 52 years old, went into rehab at 59, all right?

So no, man, it is never, never too late, never.

You just gotta do something about it.

- Being involved with the community, it gives everybody a fullness and a sense of purpose, and new friends and happiness.

So I encourage everybody to be involved in this new recovery movement.

It's good for the whole community.

♪ The harvest is great and laborers are few ♪ ♪ But if we're united we all things can do ♪ ♪ We'll gather the wheat from the midst of the tares ♪ ♪ And bring them from bondage, from sorrows and sin ♪ ♪ Oh Babylon, oh Babylon, we bid thee farewell ♪ ♪ We're going to the mountains of Ephraim to dwell ♪