From Heroin and Homelessness to Sober CEO | Wade’s StoryFrom Heroin and Homelessness to Sober CEO | Wade’s Story
Recovery On-Air
Wade recounts his path from heroin addiction, homelessness and repeated relapse to becoming the sober CEO of Plugged In Recovery. He describes how faith, AA, supportive family and lived-experience-driven treatment programmes became central to rebuilding his life.
57:33•29 May 2026
From Heroin and Homelessness to Plugged In CEO: Wade’s Remarkable Turnaround
Episode Overview
- Early obsessive tendencies can be a warning sign, even when childhood looks stable on the surface.
- Opiate prescriptions after injury became Wade’s “drug of no choice”, quickly progressing to heroin.
- External success – money, career, relationships – does not fix the internal despair of addiction.
- Working the 12 steps with the aim of finding God and becoming a better person shifted his recovery.
- Plugged In Recovery grew from a small online idea into housing and treatment services by combining lived experience, structure and community support.
“"Stop working the steps to get sober, and start working the steps to find God and be a better person."”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol or drugs when, on paper, they already seem to have it all? This conversation follows Wade, a former heroin user who went from being an "upper middle class" Minnesota baseball kid to a homeless addict in Arizona, and then to sober CEO of Plugged In Recovery.
Wade talks honestly about how early obsession showed up in harmless ways – "pogs, Pokémon cards, grape Kool-Aid" – and later shifted to opiates after a high school football injury. He explains how his addiction escalated from pills to heroin, the loss of his fiancée just weeks before their wedding, and a relapse that took him all the way to holding signs while homeless by canals in Arizona.
He also shares a different kind of rock bottom: sitting in a hotel room after COVID with a $28,000 commission cheque, a good job at GoDaddy, the girl back, and "everything that I thought would make me happy" – yet still wanting to die. That moment pushed him towards AA, a deeper faith in God, and finally working the steps "to find God and be a better person" rather than just to get sober.
Kristen keeps things light and real, mixing humour with tough questions, while Wade walks through how Plugged In evolved from a social media page into sober living homes, residential treatment, outpatient care and beyond. He stresses the importance of staff with lived experience, family support, and a simple daily commitment: stay sober today, worry about tomorrow later.
Anyone curious about how recovery can grow from a mum’s couch to multiple treatment centres – without losing humility or honesty – will find this story worth their time. It quietly asks: if Wade can rebuild from heroin, homelessness and relapse, what might be possible for you?
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