Bio Part 1
Hi, My name is Mary Elizabeth but I just go by Liz. I’m 36 serving a 48 Months sentence for drug charges. Similar to Mr. Santos, I was also given every possible chance in life to succeed. My mother was a very hard-working woman and she provided for both me and my sister by herself. My father was absent for most of my life. I used to hold hatred in my heart for him for that reason because he chose to raise my step-siblings but not his own kids. I have since forgiven him because it was the core of what I feel led to my addiction. I wasn’t always addicted though. I was very successful in all I pursued in high school. I was on the Dance Team, Spanish Club, FBLA, Key Club, Scholars Bowl, Science Olympiad, and a member of the National Honor Society. I had big dreams of going to college after high school, but fate intervened and I became pregnant with my daughter shortly after graduating in 2006. My daughter was born in Sep 2007 and I was married in Dec 2007. I went from having zero responsibility to have a ton of responsibility, because not only did I have a newborn I also had two step children under the age of 3. I was also taking care of my husband’s grandparents who both ended up on hospice within a year of each other. to say that I was overwhelmed would be a gross understatement. To make a hectic situation worse, my mother-in-law made life extremely hard for me. She kept telling my husband I would never be good enough for him and I was nothing but white trash. After hearing her rants over and over I started to believe I was in fact unworthy. I fell into depression and told no one because I didn’t really have time to be sick I had kids and responsibilities to attend to. I was falling apart on the inside still trying to project myself as if nothing were wrong. I got pregnant with my second child in 2009 and he was born in Jan of 2010. The doctor sent me home with a prescription for Tramadol. I instantly fell in love with the way they made me feel. I no longer felt sad all the time and I had energy to do all the things I needed to do and then some. I was working at a car dealership when I went back to work I bought some Lortabs from a coworker. I kept this up until I ended up with a 20 pill a day habit. I was no longer doing them to get high, I was just trying to prevent getting sick. I was also numb to all the emotional abuse I was being put through by my mother-in-law. I lost all sense of feeling. I got hired from the car dealership by an insurance company and soon after passed the test to be a licensed insurance agent in Alabama. I felt like I had finally proven myself worthy but alas it wasn’t enough in everyone’s eyes. I was also battling an opiate addiction in secret and not even my husband knew it. One habit led to another and I ended up on Roxy’s and then heroin. I lost my job, my husband, my children, and most of my family wouldn’t speak to me. I was literally out on the street by myself and I don’t know how but I survived 8 hard years on my own. I finally began to get into legal trouble in 2017, stealing from Walmart just to eat. I was arrested and released several times before finally catching a distribution case. I was given the option to go to a year-long rehab instead of doing 5 yrs in state prison. I took the rehab offer and went to Birmingham to the Lovelady Center. I didn’t want to be there and from the start, I had a plan to fake it until I made it through and could go back to getting high. God had different plans for me for the first time in 10 years I was clean and it felt so good. I fought in court and got supervised visits back with my kids and got passes to come see them on the weekends. Things were looking up. I lost focus on what I was trying to accomplish though and let a relationship become more important than my sobriety. Although I graduated from the program and had my charges dismissed, I was using my relationship as my new addiction and it turned out to be a very toxic situation. I came back from TN and went back to doing the one thing I knew I was good at, selling drugs. The feds busted me shortly after and I was indicted on conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl on Feb 16th, 2022. I was advised to just plead guilty even though they lied on the paper to get the search warrant and the chain of custody on the evidence was wrong. I got sentenced on Aug 5, 2022 to 48 months. I was also given a 922C for a gun I never even had. It was found at a different location with some of the drugs I sold so they added it to my case citing it was from an unindicted co coconspirator. The 2pt. enhancement made me ineligible for the year off for RDAP as I would find out later. I was finally picked up to be transported to prison on Jan 4th, 2023. After almost a month in transit, I arrived at FCI Tallahassee on Feb. 8th, 2023. I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here, having never have actually been to prison. I started enrolling in every FSA class I could because at my initial team meeting I was told I needed 3 points off to be a low recidivism. I didn’t know then how FSA works but now I know the actual classes don’t take points off and you can only earn 10 or 15 days a month regardless of how many classes you take. I completed Foundation, Healthier Me, Assert Yourself, Drawing 1, Painting 1, Women of the 21st Century, Start Now, A.A., Wellness Classes and an ACE class for Fiction Writing. I started working at UNICOR on Apr. 29th, 2023, as of this writing on Mar 15th, 2024 I’m still employed with the same company doing the same thing I’ve done for a year and I’ve gotten quite good at my job. I did RDAP for 7 months and then signed out because I wanted to work full-time and save some money before I’m released. I’m currently taking the NRES program 100-hour drug program and trying to plan for my release. I have a safety net in place and people who love me at home and are waiting for me to get back. I’m so lucky in that regard. I’m not sure where my career path is headed I’m looking for direction when it comes to degrees I can get and actually work with since I have a federal felony drug charge. I’m here to learn from people who can direct me toward success in reentry. As of right now I have signed my halfway house papers but the packet hasn’t left the compound, so I’m still about 45 day from finding out a release date. I do have my mind set on not re-offending and staying clean and sober after I finally leave. I’m grateful for the experience prison has brought me though, unless you ever lose your freedom you really don’t appreciate it.
