SHAIR 99: "Get Sober, Stay Sober" with Dr. Harold Jonas, founder of Sober.comSHAIR 99: "Get Sober, Stay Sober" with Dr. Harold Jonas, founder of Sober.com
The SHAIR Recovery Podcast
Dr Harold Jonas shares how he went from heroin addiction and short jail stints to long-term recovery, family reconnection and creating tech tools for people with opioid problems. The conversation focuses on daily recovery basics, medication-assisted treatment, and practical ways to support others to get sober and stay sober.
1:05:29•3 Jan 2017
From Heroin to Helping Others: Dr Harold Jonas on Getting – and Staying – Sober
Episode Overview
- Make a clear decision each morning not to use, and treat that as a daily non‑negotiable.
- Sticking to recovery basics – meetings, literature, and a home group – can sustain sobriety for decades.
- Medication-assisted treatment users deserve the same respect and seat in recovery as anyone else.
- Simple routines like prayer, meditation, and exercise help maintain spiritual and emotional fitness.
- Free, app-based coaching and accountability can support people dealing with opioid addiction and reduce overdose risk.
“When you’re in recovery you have to make the same decision every morning that no matter what happens during the course of a day, I’m not going to use no matter what.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? For many, it’s hearing from someone who’s gone from a cardboard box on the street to leading innovation in addiction support – and that’s exactly what you’ll get from Dr Harold Jonas. Hosted by Omar Pinto on The SHAIR Recovery Podcast, this episode focuses less on gory "war stories" and more on what long-term recovery actually looks like day to day.
Dr Jonas, a former heroin user with nearly three decades clean, talks about his simple but relentless routine: morning prayer, conscious contact with a higher power, yoga, stretching and regular meetings at the same home group he’s attended since the late 1980s. You’ll hear how treatment and 12-step recovery helped him rebuild his life, repair family relationships and eventually earn a PhD.
He then turned his experience into action by creating online recovery directories and mobile apps to support people dealing with opioid addiction, including those on medication-assisted treatment. He’s clear that anyone trying to improve their life – whether on methadone, suboxone or abstinent – "earns their seat like everybody else" and shouldn’t be shamed with lines like "come back when you’re clean".
Along the way, there are lighter moments too: from proposing to his wife under a full moon with about a year clean, to discovering she was the girl he first kissed at summer camp. The mix of humour, honesty and hard-won experience makes this episode especially helpful for anyone in early recovery, families worried about opioids, or old-timers wanting a fresh reminder of the basics.
If you’ve ever wondered whether long-term recovery can stay both grounded and purposeful, this conversation might nudge you to ask: what decision are you making tomorrow morning?
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