We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Petersen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kevin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I was 43 years old and 16 years sober and I hated my job. I had done sales my entire life and was successful but it didnt feed my soul. I knew I had to make a change and it was now or never, so I quit my secure six figure gig and went back to school to become a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I took a huge leap going from being financially secure to surviving on a minimum wage job and student loans. I knew this was my calling and I also knew I was halfway through my life expectancy and I didn’t want to be that guy that always talked about what he really wanted to do but never did it. I was terrified and thrilled at the same time. I struggled academically in my undergraduate program because of my addiction to drugs and alcohol, I was actually kicked out of college in 1987 for poor grades, poor behavior and being a troublemaker. I got sober in 1991 and went back to college and was an A student and that is what got me accepted into my graduate program. The Dean of my grad school said I had been around the block a few times and would bring life experience to my classes and they also put me on probation for a semester just to be sure I could do the work. I graduate in 2011 from Regis University with a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy and a 3.89 GPA. I worked for a local community mental health agency for three years learning my trade and then started my private practice in April 2014. It was another huge leap of faith to leave my salary job with benefits to starting my own practice. Fortunately, I was busy from the day I opened my doors and have never looked back. I knew I wanted to help families that had loved ones that are struggling with addiction and codependency because that was my story and I had found a way to recover as the family member and the addict. I have created a system that is designed to teach the family how to set boundaries with love and empathy and I believe that helps their loved one thats struggling with addiction. The approach is different than the old tough love idea of waiting until they hit bottom and keeping them on the outside until they do. My system is about saying, we love you and we are going to respect your choice to keep using but if you want help we will help you and until then we are going to keep our distance.
Kevin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up in Palo Alto California in a big beautiful home with all the accoutrements of a wealthy family, and on the inside of the house it was a total shit show. My mother was a prescription drug addict and had some serious mental health issues and we had absolutely no idea how to deal with that. So what we did was to present as well as possible as if there was nothing wrong. I ended up using alcohol and drugs starting when I was 13 and it turned out I too was an alcoholic and an addict. I ended up going to the University of Southern California in the fall of 1982 and that’s really where the wheels came off the wagon. I flunked out of college but told everybody that I graduated, I even had them come watch me walk through the graduation ceremonies in 1988 even though I wasn’t even through my junior year. In August 1990 my family banded together and had my father confront me and he told me that until I was willing to stop the drugs and the alcohol and the lifestyle, I was no longer part of the family. That was a defining moment for me because it really called me out to address my addiction. I am not getting sober on May 5, 1991, and have been sober ever cents. That is really when the journey starts for me. I went back to USC and graduated in 1994 and then I moved to Denver in 1995. I got married in 2002 and divorced in 2005, I realized that after being in sales for 25 years that I had absolutely no interest in doing that anymore. In 2007 I walked out of my job that had supplied me with a car and six figures and went back to school at Regis University in Denver, where I enrolled in the masters of marriage and family therapy program . I graduated in 2011 and got a job at Arapahoe Douglas mental health, a community mental health agency, where I worked on the crisis team and the acute treatment unit, which really helped me understand the kind of work that I love to do. I love working within the structure of a family system to solve the problem . I opened up my private practice, Petersen Family Counseling, in April 2014 one day a week and it failed instantly. I opened up a second day in May 2014 and that failed instantly, so I quit working for Arapahoe Douglas and ventured out on my own and I’ve never looked back. In 2015 I created a two day family program and sold it into four treatment centers in Denver. I also started hiring contractors to facilitate the family program and to do therapy for me. In 2019 I released my first book “Chronic Hope, Parenting The Addicted Child”. And then a 2021 I released my second book “Chronic Hope: Families & Addiction”. I am now launching an online training program for professionals in the mental health business and the addiction business. I have continued to follow my dreams and follow my desires in the business world and be willing to take risks and take leaps and see what happens.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I graduated with my masters in marriage and family therapy in 2011 and immediately started working for Arapahoe Douglas mental health to learn the trade. I ended up realizing that I don’t do very well in large corporate environments where there’s all sorts of rules and regulations and oversight and people telling me what to do and how to do it. I always knew I wanted to work for myself but it was certainly scary to venture out into the world of private practice with no Safetynet. So in April 2014 I opened up my private practice one day a week and it failed instantly. I opened up another day in May 2014 and that filled instantly so then I walked into my bosses office in June 2014 and quit. He warned me that it always looks better to be in private practice because you’re making more money but there are all sorts of pitfalls that you have to watch out for. He told me to be careful that I was putting enough money aside to pay my taxes that I was doing the proper marketing to find new clients and establish my reputation. I trusted my instincts and was willing to walk away from the super secure stable job and go out on my own and see what happens. I never had to look back, I took off immediately and was super successful right off the bat. To answer the question, I had to pivot in 2008 when I left my job and went back to graduate school because I knew in my heart that I was done filling out spreadsheets and making money for other people. And then I had to do it again in 2014 when I realized I couldn’t work for somebody else.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I think the thing that separates me from all the other therapists that to the same kind of work that I do, is that I grew up in a house of addiction, I became an addict, I got sober, and now I’m a mental health professional. So instead of speaking about addiction Codependancy and family systems as if it’s a theoretical or academic topic, I speak from a position of personal experience and professional experience. I think that level of authenticity resonates with my client base and I think it allows them to have trust in me that I know what I’m talking about because I’ve experienced exactly what they’re experiencing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.chronichope.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thechronichopeinstitute/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chronichopeinstitute
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinpetersenmamft/
- Twitter: KevpetersenPFC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChronicHopeInstitute
Image Credits
https://www.laurajayephotography.com/ Laura Jaye
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