When I sat down with Kristen Johnson, I knew I was about to hear a story that would shake up the way listeners think about recovery and reentry.
Kristen’s story starts like so many others – addiction, incarceration, the kind of spiral that most people never climb out of. But here’s what makes her different: she didn’t just survive her nightmare. She built something beautiful from the ashes.
I asked her about those early days, when she was running around Sierra Vista with meth in her purse and a gun in her car. “I was a disaster of my own making,” she told me. “But I knew I had to do something different.”
That something different became The Light – a newsletter that now reaches into prisons, recovery centers, and reentry programs across Arizona. It’s not fancy. It’s not polished. But it’s real, and it’s helping people who need it most.
What strikes me most about Kristen is how she sees people. When someone gets out of prison with nothing but the clothes on their back, most of us would think about the big picture – housing, jobs, the system. Kristen thinks about toothbrushes. Clean socks. A pen to write home.
“I came across something she was helping somebody to get, you know, just their toiletries and different things just to get started,” she said, describing her own work. That line stuck with me because it shows how she operates – not with grand gestures, but with the small acts of care that actually matter.
She’s become a reentry coordinator at Graham County Substance Abuse, but that title doesn’t capture what she really does. She’s a bridge between two worlds – the one inside the walls and the one outside. And she’s built that bridge one person at a time.
When Kristen got out of prison, she had a simple goal: start a newsletter. Not because she wanted to be a writer, but because she remembered what it was like to be locked up with no connection to the outside world.
“I want to send you this newsletter I’m going to make,” she told the women she’d sponsored in prison. Most of them probably didn’t believe her. People get out and make promises all the time. But Kristen actually did it.
Now The Light goes into prisons across Arizona. It’s not about her story – it’s about hope, resources, and the simple truth that someone on the outside cares. For women who’ve been forgotten by everyone else, that newsletter is proof that they matter.
Kristen’s approach to recovery isn’t about perfect attendance at meetings or checking boxes on a form. It’s about showing up for people when they need it most. It’s about remembering what it felt like to be alone and making sure others don’t have to feel that way.
She works with people who are still in prison, preparing them for what comes next. She meets them at the gate when they get out. She helps them find housing, jobs, the basic things that most of us take for granted. But more than that, she helps them remember who they used to be before addiction took over.
Her husband Terry has been there through it all – the good times and the terrible ones. “Because I love her,” he told a group of men in a pre-trial program when they asked why he stayed. That kind of love, the kind that doesn’t give up even when everything falls apart, is what real recovery is built on.
Kristen’s story isn’t about redemption or second chances. It’s about what happens when you stop running from your past and start using it to light the way for others. She’s proof that the worst moments of your life can become the foundation for something beautiful.