Brittany remembers the day she let go of everything. Her obsession with control, her addiction to alcohol, her illusion that she could do it all on her own.
On December 4th, 2020, Brittany checked into the drug and alcohol rehabilitation program at the Salvation Army of Sarasota County. After nearly a lifetime of evading her addiction, she came face-to-face with it.
Brittany, better known to her friends and neighbors as B, has always felt the need to rearrange her life. She never felt she could plant roots. She would later learn she shared her nomadic spirit with her father, whom all she knew of was a man who occasionally called her mother from a dock somewhere when he needed money.
For years, B lived in her small home town in Washington -- a desert town where she felt she could no longer grow.
She realized the magic she felt from her home had dried up like the desert surrounding her. She left the hot and dry behind, hoping for better Florida days, but the struggles with addiction followed.
Days and nights blurred. She moved from halfway house to hotel rooms, from shelter to streets. All the while, B thought she was in control. Now, she will tell you she never truly was.
It wasn’t until the day she checked into the rehabilitation program that she recognized what it would mean for her to say goodbye to the control she had, or the illusion of it.
Letting go sounds like a simple thing to do. But B knew it would be the hardest choice she could make for herself.
“The less I push against the universe, the more things can unfold as they’re absolutely intended to,” B said.
