Photograph and video courtesy of West Virginia University Reed College of Media Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 Multimedia Storytelling students

Trauma and Addiction

Brittany Knight grew up surrounded by addiction and relatives who were incarcerated as a result of it. She was arrested for prostitution, at the
age of 16.

When she was arrested in 2017, she had been selling drugs for a few years, and she was facing charges that carried six-to-60 years in prison. During a reconsideration hearing in Kanawha County, the court decided she would be better served participating in Adult Drug Court and Marie’s House Recovery Program in Wayne, West Virginia.

Knight was interviewed for this project shortly before she completed the recovery program at Marie’s House. She then failed to complete drug court when she violated one of the conditions of probation supervision. Her status with the legal system was in flux in the summer of 2020. Unfortunately recovery is not always a linear process.