Obituary: Pat Levy, 62, was pioneer in chemical dependency treatment in Minnesota

For decades, Pat Levy was a tireless advocate for addiction treatment programs in Minnesota.

"She touched literally thousands of lives and participated in countless interventions and was a real leader in the recovering community," said former U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, himself a recovering alcoholic. "She was a true pioneer in the field of chemical dependency in Minnesota."

Levy, 62, died Sept. 4 of pancreatitis.

Her husband, Paul Levy, said his wife was passionate about her work with drug addicts and alcoholics, treating members of some of the state's most prominent families as well as street junkies.

"She was funny," he said. "She was incredibly personable. She could talk to anybody. She wasn't awed by fame and fortune and she wasn't afraid to deal with people who may have been dealt a bad hand."

In her early 20s, she got involved with Youth Emergency Services, which was treating young people in Minneapolis who were coming down from bad LSD trips.

She worked for Way-12, a Wayzata halfway house; Community Intervention; Parkview West treatment program, and St. Mary's Hospital. She was the former director of HEART treatment program and former chairwoman of the West Hennepin Human Services board.

Levy hired Steinhagen at Parkview, his first counseling job. Later, after he went to St. Mary's and Parkview closed, he hired her to work at the hospital's adolescent drug and alcohol treatment program. Levy wore several hats at St. Mary's, sometimes simultaneously, including counseling, intervention, business development, marketing and fundraising.

"Pat was one of those people who had a heart the size of a football field and cared about people who were suffering," Steinhagen said. "She had a unique style of being blatantly honest in a compassionate way."

Steinhagen said that later in life, she became "a member of the Twelve Step recovery community herself, and found her way back to being the dynamo she was before the onset of alcohol."

Carol Falkowski, one of the state's leading experts on addiction, lauded Levy's central role in treatment programs, part of an "aging cohort that … over the course of decades kept the Twin Cities a great place to recover."

Her husband, Paul, a longtime reporter at the Star Tribune who retired in July, said his wife was one of seven children who grew up in a two-bedroom house in St. Paul and graduated from St. Joseph's Academy.

She is also survived by a daughter, Sarah Ellen Levy, a son, Sam David Levy; sisters Terry Westling of Tacoma, Wash., Anne Meyer-Thomas of Vancouver, Wash.; and brothers Richard Meyer of Edina and Greg Meyer of Grapeview, Wash.

Her husband said that two weeks ago while on life support at Abbott Northwestern Hospital she was visited by two men who stood on either side of her bed, holding her hand. She had treated three members of one man's family for addiction, and had counseled the other man for his own addiction.

"You saved my life twice when everybody else gave up on me." the man said.

A memorial service is scheduled Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at Bet Shalom Congregation, 13613 Orchard Road, Minnetonka. Shiva will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. at 18915 Hanus Road, Minnetonka.