SHAIR 90: "Don't leave before the Miracle Happens" with Dawn Lutrell as Ellen!SHAIR 90: "Don't leave before the Miracle Happens" with Dawn Lutrell as Ellen!
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Comedian and Ellen lookalike Dawn Luttrell shares a funny yet heart‑wrenching story of addiction, relapse and losing her sister to this illness. Her account focuses on how brutal honesty, treatment and service helped her rebuild a meaningful sober life and why she believes no one should leave before their own miracle happens.
1:22:48•1 Nov 2016
“Don’t Leave Before the Miracle Happens” with Dawn Luttrell, the Sober Ellen
Episode Overview
- Alcohol initially felt like instant comfort and freedom for Dawn, but quickly became a destructive force marked by blackouts and escalating drug use.
- Early sobriety and strong sponsorship showed her that recovery could be vibrant and fun, yet complacency and stepping away from meetings led back to relapse.
- Her sister’s relapse and death by suicide shook her faith in recovery and triggered two years of intense drinking and drug use that she describes as “absolute hell.”
- A stay at a 12-step based treatment centre and a brutally honest First Step — including sharing long-hidden secrets — marked a real turning point in her sobriety.
- Dawn now relies on daily spiritual work, service, and humour in recovery, urging newcomers to stay: change is possible if you can just stay willing — or at least be willing to be willing.
“Don’t give up before the miracle happens. Change is a gift that is possible for everyone. If you can’t be willing, be willing to be willing.”
Curious about how others manage co-occurring grief and addiction while rebuilding their lives? This episode follows comedian and Ellen DeGeneres impersonator Dawn Luttrell as she shares a raw, funny and emotional account of addiction, relapse, loss and a very unlikely second chance. You’ll hear how Dawn’s first drink at 13 instantly felt like the missing piece: total comfort in her own skin, permission to say and do anything, and zero sense of consequence.
That rush spiralled into teenage rehabs, cocaine-fuelled years as a touring musician, and the familiar pattern of blowing up her life, smoothing it over, and then starting again. The heart of the conversation comes when Dawn talks about her sister Tracy, who showed her what vibrant recovery could look like — 21 years sober, deep into service, the kind of person who climbed ladders to do 12‑step calls through bedroom windows.
When Tracy relapsed and later died by suicide, Dawn’s faith in recovery shattered. She describes picking up a bottle and thinking, “Twelve steps never did nothing for her… and I’m done,” which led to two years she calls “absolute hell”. Her turning point arrives in a treatment centre high in the Rocky Mountains, where a no‑nonsense counsellor pushes her into doing a truly honest First Step.
Dawn’s description of that night, and of finally dropping the emotional ‘backpack of rocks’ she’d been carrying, will ring true for anyone who’s tried to outrun their past. Now sober since February 2011, Dawn talks about daily spiritual routines, saying yes to service, and using comedy and her “sober Ellen” persona to bring laughter into recovery spaces.
Her message to newcomers is simple and memorable: “Don’t give up before the miracle happens… if you can’t be willing, be willing to be willing.” If you’re hanging on by a thread, what would it look like to stay just long enough for your own miracle?
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