The Flagg Sisters - Family in Recovery

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Carly Flagg, 29, grew up with the best family, in a great house, getting everything she ever needed or wanted.
“But it wasn’t enough,” she said.
As a young teen, Carly realized that while her friends could choose to stop using substances, she couldn’t. One semester into college, Carly had to move back in with her parents because of her addiction.
“That’s really when things got messy, and my life felt really, really unmanageable,” Carly said.
Carly’s older sister Brynn, 34, tried to convince their parents that Carly needed help, but they didn’t want to believe that something was wrong. It got to the point where Carly was stealing from her family to help pay for opiates and heroin.
“I would sell everything in the house,” Carly said. “I sold my dad’s golf clubs. I sold my sister’s purses. I sold my mother’s engagement ring.”
“The TV isn’t just disappearing,” Brynn tried to tell their parents.
Carly went to several treatment centers and sober living facilities but had relapsed four or five times. Carly’s parents would have done anything to keep her safe, she said. Even if it meant following her down the road if she left their house intoxicated, giving her rides, or even bailing her out of jail.
One day, Carly’s dad found her overdosed in the bathroom. She spent four days in the ICU.
“I just remember my mom kneeling down and crying and saying, ‘What are we going to do at this point?’” Carly said. “That was the first time that my mom was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”
Carly said that it helped to “reach a rock bottom” once her parents finally refused to keep “enabling” her. She dove into the steps of recovery and found a community of women to become sober with.
“I can guarantee I would not be sober today if it weren’t for them,” Carly said.
Brynn said that the community that Carly found was something that she and her family needed as well. At the time, there wasn’t much support for families of people with addictions.
The sisters are now building a digital platform for families of those in recovery. The company will partner with treatment facilities to provide one-on-one coaching and peer connections.
“I know that while I was in addiction, if my dad could have talked to another dad that likes to go golfing and had another daughter that was going through what I was going through, it would have helped him a lot,” Carly said. “It might’ve given them a little bit of relief, just a little bit.”
While in the midst of addiction, Carly remembers feeling like there was no way out.
“I remember sitting at dinner one night [with Brynn and her boyfriend]… looking at her boyfriend thinking, “‘How was he so normal?’” Carly said. “I’m living in my own hell and I don’t know how to get out of this?”
“That’s why we’re building the company too,” Brynn said. “So many people feel alone on this journey.”
But they are not.
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