SHAIR 87: "Expect a Miracle" with Rebecca Ronning, Surviving Heroin Addiction.SHAIR 87: "Expect a Miracle" with Rebecca Ronning, Surviving Heroin Addiction.
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Rebecca Ronning talks about sliding from high-achieving teenager to heroin addiction, repeated overdoses and treatment, and how she eventually embraced meetings, service and spirituality. Her story shows what early recovery can look like for a young person rebuilding family ties, relationships and a future career in counselling.
1:08:17•11 Oct 2016
“Expect a Miracle”: Rebecca Ronning on Heroin, Heartbreak and Hope at 21
Episode Overview
- Following other people’s suggestions instead of your own thinking can make early recovery safer and more stable.
- Service work, such as volunteering with those who are homeless or struggling, can bring humility and purpose to sobriety.
- Building a regular routine with work, meetings, walks and sponsor contact helps create calm after chaotic using.
- Separating spirituality from organised religion can make it easier to connect with a higher power.
- It is possible to get clean young and build a meaningful life, including study, relationships and family plans.
“Service work will save your life.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? Rebecca Ronning’s account of surviving heroin addiction might be high on anyone’s list. At just 21, Rebecca shares how she went from star student and athlete in a tiny Minnesota town to a deeply entrenched heroin habit, five inpatient stays, three sober houses, four overdoses and a blood infection that nearly shut down her kidneys.
Both her parents had 26 years’ sobriety, yet she still found herself using, stealing her mum’s jewellery and bouncing between boyfriends, a “sugar daddy”, hospitals and the courts. Her honesty is blunt and refreshing. She laughs at her own warped logic – like using straight after treatment “to prove I’m not a drug addict” – and owns the anger and self‑hatred that bubbled up once the drugs were gone.
She admits, “I realized I don’t care, I’m not scared of dying, but I’m scared of living,” capturing the quiet terror many feel in early sobriety. The turning point comes after that serious blood infection. This time she does what other people suggest instead of what her head tells her: 90 meetings in 90 days, therapy, a sponsor, women friends, routines and heaps of service. Her top lesson?
“Service work will save your life.” For the first six months she was up early at The Salvation Army, making and serving breakfast to people who were homeless or couldn’t afford food, and calls it “really humbling” and “amazing”. Rebecca also talks about building a relationship with a higher power, separating God from organised religion, and noticing “God moments” in her life and others’.
Now she’s over a year clean, back at college to become a drug and alcohol counsellor, in a stable relationship with a partner in recovery, and expecting a baby. If you’ve ever thought you’re too young, too far gone, or that sobriety means a boring life, Rebecca’s story might have you asking: what if this is actually where life really starts?
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