By Christy Reser

New beginnings don’t always arrive softly. Sometimes they show up as a breakdown, a reality check, a moment that cracks your whole life open. Sometimes they come after years of trying to hold everything together with shaking hands. And sometimes, a new beginning is simply a decision, “I deserve better. My kids deserve better.”

I’m Christy. Born and raised in Las Vegas. A mom. A grandma. A wife. A Peer Recovery Support Specialist and harm-reduction advocate. But before any of that, I was a woman who had completely lost herself. My life before recovery wasn’t one big dramatic collapse; it was a slow, painful unraveling.

Christy Reser (center) with her daugher, Arrie (left), and Arrie’s partner, Adriana (right)

I was a single mom with two daughters, working full-time, trying to survive with no support. My whole family had moved away. I was going through a cancer diagnosis and a custody battle. I was trying to cope with my own childhood trauma while pretending I was fine. After my oldest daughter’s father went to prison, life was hard, so hard, and I was doing it all alone.

Addiction didn’t walk in loudly. It crept in during moments when I was exhausted, days when I was overwhelmed, and nights when I was ashamed. I was buried under responsibilities I didn’t know how to carry. I didn’t use because I wanted to; I used because I didn’t have any other way to numb the pain sitting deep in my soul. I had lost my job because of my addiction. I pushed all my friends away. I ended up homeless with a teenage daughter and a 6-year-old who spent half the time with her dad. Life was so unmanageable, and I did not know what I was going to do next. I was walking with my daughters in old Henderson, down Lake Mead Drive. You can see the whole city from there. I looked out over the valley, the city I lived in for 32 years, and I didn’t have a single person I could call. I had burnt my whole life to the ground. Standing there with my girls, I didn’t just feel like a failure; I felt like I was nothing. How could I put them through this? How could I be their mom like this? They deserve better than this, better than me! But that moment, the moment that felt like the end, was actually the beginning. Because I decided right then that my daughters would one day have a mother they could be proud of. That single thought carried me forward.

My first steps toward recovery were a little rehab on 6th Street called We Care. I don’t even remember how I found it; maybe the universe dropped it in my path. I packed the last pieces of my life into two bins and walked inside. Those first few nights were the worst: sleeping in a room with 2 other girls in a small twin-size bed. I was so scared and questioned whether I even belonged there and whether I was doing the right thing. On the 3rd night there, I talked with the house mom and told her I just needed a sign to know I was doing the right thing and on the right path.

The next morning, at the 10 a.m. meeting, a woman started sharing. She had gone through We Care years before. She told us she wasn’t even supposed to be in town, that she had gotten a call from an old friend who just dropped her sister off at this little house on 6th street. So she decided to show up and support this girl whom she didn’t even know. She pointed to a wedding photo on the mantle of her and her bridesmaids and talked about how this house saved her life. That picture was of her, the woman sitting next to her, and my sister. Tears started streaming down my cheeks. The house mom sitting next to me wrote on a small piece of note paper, “no coincidence.” I carry that piece of paper with me everywhere I go, in a little book. That moment grounded me! It kept me sitting there in that seat for the next 27 days. It held me in place when my whole body wanted to flee. It was the universe whispering, “Stay. You’re safe. You’re home.” So I stayed. And that choice saved my life.

People think recovery looks like a lightning-bolt moment, a big, dramatic breakthrough where everything suddenly makes sense. But that isn’t how it happens. Recovery lives in the small, shaking steps. It’s waking up and wanting to use, then choosing not to. It’s dragging yourself into a meeting even when you swear you hate everyone in the room. It’s letting someone hold you when you feel unworthy of love. It’s daring to hope for a life you don’t yet believe you deserve. Recovery is messy. It’s emotional and terrifying. It asks you to sit with feelings you spent years running from. But it’s also where you begin to rebuild yourself, piece by fragile piece, learning who you are without the numbness, without the chaos, without the lies you once told yourself just to survive.

That little house on 6th Street is where everything changed for me. I walked through its doors broken, ashamed, and convinced I was unlovable. And inside, I found women who saw me anyway. Women who met me exactly where I was and stayed. Women who, to this day, are the ones I turn to when life feels too heavy, when I don’t know my next step, when I need to cry without explanation, and when something beautiful happens, and I need someone who truly understands to celebrate with me.

There is magic in that place. You go in beaten down and hollowed out, carrying more pain than you know what to do with. And if you are open to it, if you let yourself be seen, you come out with something solid beneath your feet. A foundation. A sisterhood. A circle of women who will walk beside you through the hardest and most breathtaking moments of your life.

If you are lucky, like I am, those women don’t just help you get through recovery. They become your lifelong friends. And that little house on 6th Street becomes the place where you didn’t just get sober, you learned how to live, and how to love, again.

Today, I work in Peer Support and harm reduction. I meet people where they are, not where the world thinks they should be. And I believe with everything in me: harm reduction saves lives.

Just recently, I spent the day in the hospital with a woman who overdosed. Her boyfriend died. She survived because she was Narcaned in time. Everyone deserves the chance to live long enough to want help.

I’ve had friends die alone in hotel rooms, too ashamed to be seen. Had they been with someone, had Narcan been nearby, they might still be here. I also have friends who are alive today because someone Narcaned them. Every life saved is a victory. Every moment someone chooses to stay is a miracle. Everyone deserves the chance to come back to themselves.

There are moments these last 17 years where I’ve stopped and thought to myself, “I almost missed this.”

When my house is full of our five adult kids and seven grandbabies, everybody is laughing and playing. The house is full of chatter and commotion… I almost missed this.

When I watched my daughter give birth to my first grandson. When I met and married my husband. When I went on my first vacation EVER. When I watched my daughter play in the state championship for her high school lacrosse team. When I officiated my Bonus daughter’s Wedding… I almost missed all of this!

I’ve traveled. I’ve built this big, beautiful, blended family. I’ve created peace. But my greatest peace? Sitting at home with my husband in my chair, curled up with my dogs, knowing my kids are out in the world thriving. All I ever wanted was to be a good mom. And after years of healing, I finally believe that I am.
What I want everyone to know is that most people don’t end up in addiction because they wanted that life. We are coping with trauma, trying to numb the pain that we never learned how to carry.

The person you judge on the street for being dirty and having nowhere to go doesn’t need to be punished. They need to be loved back to life. We are all one tragedy away from breaking. But we are also one loving moment away from healing.

There is another life waiting on the other side of your pain. You just can’t see it yet… your mind can’t even imagine it, but I promise you, it is beautiful.

As we all step into this new year, we don’t have to have everything figured out. You don’t need a perfect plan. You just need to believe that you deserve a chance.

Because you do.

This article was originally published in the 2026 New Beginnings Issue of Las Vegas PRIDE Magazine, and can be read in its original format here.