I was born in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, on September 27, 1971, to Ray and Dana
Carlisle. My mother was abandoned by her mother at a young age. Her father was an
alcoholic and abusive to my grandmother but otherwise a hard worker in the coal mining
industry of Richlands, Virginia. My mother, her three sisters, and one brother were
raised by her father. She had an abusive husband and left to live with a friend in
Pennsylvania. She began working as a secretary at Resistance Products and met my
father, a self-made electronics engineer. I have three older brothers, Matt, Adam, and
Heath, the youngest of which is six years older than me.
My brothers were each one year apart. I experienced a mix of being spoiled and feeling
left out since I was considerably younger. Six years younger than my closest brother. I
spent most of my time in many ways just trying to measure up to them as I felt in many
ways being left out. When I was three, my parents decided to move us to a rural part of
Pennsylvania. They wanted to live a simpler lifestyle. Though I would not have called
them “Hippies” I believe they were very active in the social revolution of the sixties and
had decided on raising their children in a more natural environment away from all the
troubles of an urban society. My father was a musician not by trade but by embodiment
and my brothers and I all chose to follow in his footsteps. Music would become a huge
part of all our lives. My mother had her hands full trying to raise four rambunctious boys.
It must have been rough for her to have struggled so hard to raise us in that old
farmhouse in Perry County where my father and her chose to relocate us in hopes of a
better life away from the city.
My father worked at the Hershey Medical Center to supplement the family income, but
we otherwise focused on the farm. We owned chickens and goats, and my father was
constantly working on our home. We only had an outhouse at the outset until my father
built a bathroom we could all share. Our primary source of water came from a long pipe
that ran downhill from a natural spring at the edge of our property. We also chopped
wood for our stove, which was our primary heating source. My brothers and I focused
on chores. Our family didn’t have much in terms of material things but thoroughly
enjoyed each other’s company and the love and joy that we had in making music
together. I generally had few friends to play with. Our closest neighbor lived three miles
away and there weren’t any children my age within a ten-mile radius.
I was hit by a car at the age of five while at my parent’s friend’s home playing ball in the
street. The vehicle catapulted me into a ditch. My father came running out and lifted me
up, fearing I was dead. I was bleeding from the ears and received a traumatic brain
injury. Miraculously, I didn’t break any bones, to the shock of the doctors and nurses. I
told them I was okay since we only drank goat’s milk at home. My father overheard and
couldn’t keep himself from breaking out in laughter.
My maternal grandmother bought an old schoolhouse about ten miles from us, and I
visited her almost every weekend. She took care of me when I was young. We played
cards, monopoly, and loved watching Sanford and Son and The Love Boat together.
She wasn’t a great cook but tried hard. I felt so safe and secure in the home courtesy of
her selfless, unconditional love. She was my best friend, and I was hers. When I was
eight, she sprained her ankle, and I had the privilege of caring for her.
I joined the Cub Scouts while my older brothers were in the 4H Club. By the time I got
old enough to join 4H, I wasn’t interested since my brothers were no longer doing it. I
spent much of my youth wishing I was older than them.
Education:
I attended Blain Elementary School, which only had around two hundred children from
kindergarten through sixth grade. It was a rural school lacking adequate supplies, but
the teachers made up for it with creativity and effort. I found school challenging and
struggled to earn average grades as I daydreamed of being a musician. I was a very
shy child and found making friends awkward. I aspired to be like my brothers and lived
in their shadow. Everyone knew and loved them, and teachers always compared me to
them. I began playing little league baseball at the age of nine, and my father coached
the team.
My parents were also very popular within the community and raised us with a laid-back
attitude. One time, my parents came home in the middle of an impromptu party my
brothers threw. There were people drinking and smoking weed in the house. Instead of
getting angry, they took my brothers aside and asked them to let them know in advance
next time. My parents took things in stride and tried to instill the values of honesty and
open-mindedness.
I went to West Perry Junior High School, where my poor grades continued. I slowly built
friendships to boost my self-esteem but, unfortunately, with the wrong people, as I
began smoking, cutting classes, and getting into trouble. I got expelled for smoking in
the school bathroom and flunked the seventh grade. My parents used a soft approach in
trying to understand why I was being self-destructive instead of yelling at or punishing
me. Getting flunked, however, had a huge impact, bruising my young ego. I pleaded
with the principal and guidance council not to be put into a remedial class and rose to
the challenge, earning grades of solid Bs thereafter.
My initial entrée’ into addiction began at age twelve. A friend and I saw older kids
sniffing paint to get high. We spent an entire summer going to the hardware store,
buying paint, and sniffing it. We went off into the woods to do it alone but eventually got
caught when the owners of the hardware store called my parents. At thirteen, I tried
cocaine for the first time while at a super bowl party I went to with an older kid I had met
in school that year. I liked it. It made me feel more confident, something I was yearning
for at that age.
I picked up the guitar at age thirteen, making me even more introverted as I spent hours
practicing each day. My goal was to join my brothers’ band. One played drums, another
keyboard, and the third bass guitar. So, I learned lead guitar to fill out the set. My father,
who grew up on a diet of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. He
played as a solo artist in local clubs in the sixties, singing while picking an acoustic
guitar and playing harmonica.
I attended West Perry High School and began coming out of my shell as I became more
popular thanks to my music and met my best friend Marshall, who played drums. I fell
into a group of friends who frequently smoked marijuana, but it didn’t interfere with my
music or school.
At sixteen, I joined The Jeffrey Wayne Band with my brothers and a person fourth
person who ran the band. We started snorting cocaine at practice and evolved into
smoking it. By seventeen, I became addicted as my brother bought it irregularly.
I began working as a lifeguard on weekends and during the summer and got jobs at
Kmart and a local tire shop, where I learned how to change oil, balance, and rotate
wheels. I also did masonry work for an Amish couple who had a commercial business
doing residential renovations, working from dawn until dusk. These jobs taught me a lot
about the importance of a hard work ethic and the value of money. I found the
experience extremely rewarding.
During my last few years of years in high school, I attended the Cumberland/Perry
Vocational School for half a day, which was forty-five minutes away from my high
school. I had developed an interest in computers, thanks to my father, and pursued a
path that would play a hugely helpful role throughout my life. I studied more diligently in
the technical school than in regular classes because it incited my passions. In the
evenings, I had band practice almost every night. It was a very demanding schedule for
someone my age, but I was very determined to rise to success with the music
opportunity knowing I had to keep my grades up in order to graduate and have a career
path in technology to fall back upon.
Early Adulthood:
After high school, our band was contracted to tour Japan. I thought I had it made and
was looking forward to a career as a musician. I imagined it was inevitable. I remember
looking at all the members of my graduating class that day of graduation thinking that I
was so fortunate to be the only one in the group truly following the path of my dreams
and succeeding. We played at the World Fair in Osaka, Japan, for three weeks and
made five thousand dollars each, plus all expenses.
Upon return from Japan, my brothers and our band leader, Jeff, decided we needed to
seek our fortune in a larger market. We considered New York and Las Angeles but
settled on Nashville since it better meshed with our country rock style.
By now, I had a three-year relationship with my high school sweetheart, Jennifer, and
couldn’t imagine being without her. So, I invited her to live with the band and me in one
large house. Everyone was taking drugs, but it seemed that my bandmates dealt with it
much better than Jennifer and me.
We didn’t earn enough playing music to support ourselves, so I worked as an office
machine technician. Sadly, Jennifer began cheating on me for drugs, as my bandmates
chastised me for my drug use, telling me to “shape up or else.” I couldn’t handle the
shame and anxiety of losing my first love that way, so I retreated back to Pennsylvania
to live with my parents. Ashamed that I had failed.
I laid at home depressed for over one year, trying to get over my girlfriend. I got a job at
Central Business Systems, changing toner, adjusting machine settings, and fixing
broken machines with paper stuck in the oddest places. It was a dead-end job, and I
was sleepwalking through life. At night, I snuck up to my room and used cocaine. I
suspect my parents knew I had a problem, but perhaps they didn’t and were giving me
space to indulge in my depression. After all, I made every effort to hide my drug use. I
knew it was a problem but felt I couldn’t live without it.
During this time, I met Patty, who was nine years older than me. She helped me
overcome the incredible pain I felt from Jennifer deserting me. I joined a band called
Latigo Smith with one of my brothers and again had hopes of pursuing music as a
career when we began touring clubs around the western united states. I hid my cocaine
habit from Patty, and it took her over a year to discover my addiction when I got fired
because cocaine destroyed my quality of work and ability to get to work on time.
Patty, with the help of my parents enrolled me into a recovery program in 1992. At
Roxbury Treatment center in Roxbury, PA thinking she could fix me. I stayed sober for a
short while but still wasn’t ready for help. I loathed myself when the relationship ended
after four years. In Patty, I had a woman who loved and cared about me despite my
significant shortcomings, but I wasn’t yet strong enough to tackle my demons. She
finally gave up on me after years of terrible disappointment.
Around this time, my band had a gig opening for Faith Hill at a concert in Hershey,
Pennsylvania. I unbelievably smoked crack and didn’t show up for the event. The band
got rid of me after that incident, which hit my brother really hard. He found it really
difficult to vote me out even as I realized I completely deserved to be.
Another Rocky Twist:
I had absolutely no direction as I wallowed in the heartache of my awful drug-related
decisions. Yet, I still hadn’t hit rock bottom. I couldn’t imagine going a day without drugs,
let alone a lifetime. My oldest brother offered to let me live with him in Nashville, so I
moved in with him, completely out of options.
I found my footing as a sound and lights engineer in a bar and fell for the owner’s
daughter, Jennifer who worked at the bar for her father at night. We had a lightning-fast
relationship and were married in six months. Unfortunately, I made no progress in
conquering my addiction and continued to hide my issue from everyone around me.
Jennifer attended nursing school, and I lived on campus with her while working for the
Robert J Young company as an office machine technician. Jennifer eventually
discovered that I was smoking crack cocaine and ended our marriage after one year.
A Major Reset:
I was so disgusted with all my awful choices and my life. I couldn’t help but focus on my
past and all the squandered potential as I became a slave to drugs, barely able to
sustain myself. I got into my beat-up Toyota pick-up truck with twenty dollars in my
pocket and drove on 40 West until I hit Utah. I stopped along the way, picking up odd
jobs for food and gas money. It took me two weeks to get there.
I was heading to Salt Lake City because I had been there touring with Latigo Smith. I
was running from my problems as I had done before, searching for meaning in my life
hoping a change would be the cure. I suppose that I was hoping to escape my
problems, but as any addict knows, changing locations will do no good because I simply
moved all my problems along with me. Yet, I gave it a shot, working as a house
manager for a band house for bands stopping through and working days for a copier
machine company. I also worked solo gigs playing guitar in local bars.
I met Jana while playing music. She was of the Mormon faith but had a strong rebellious
streak, and I was just the type of wrong kind of guy she had been searching for. I knew I
wasn’t suited for a relationship yet since I arrived in Salt Lake but succumbed to her
advances and stricken with loneliness in a new town I gave into her inviting company.
She became pregnant one and one-half weeks into dating; I had only been in Salt Lake
City for one month. Jana wanted to have the child, but I didn’t. I was terrified of the
responsibility. However, the pending birth of my child got me to quit cocaine cold turkey,
as I moved in with Jana into a house her mother gifted her.
I tried to do my part, remodeling the home, while I joined a band called Big Water,
hoping for one last big break. Music was the only thing I loved, and I still hoped to make
it my permanent career. Unfortunately, music also played the perpetual role in my ever-
present heartbreak plunging me into addiction. One of the members of Big Water
introduced me to methamphetamines, and I instantly got hooked.
Jana and I split up when our son, Branson, was born in 1998. I was a complete wreck
as a drug addict. That combined poorly with Jana’s controlling personality. She also
drank frequently, preferring to be out at the bars, while I just wanted to stay home and
do drugs. Jana and I separated in 1999 when I moved to San Francisco to live with my
brother Heath.
A Fresh Start:
I returned to Jana within a year seeking to reconcile and convinced her to live with me in
California. We moved into our own apartment and had our daughter Olivia in 2000, as I
swore off drugs and became totally clean and sober for the first time in my adult life. I
also stopped playing music, realizing that each time I returned to my passion, it came
with the dark side of yearning for drugs, constantly interfering with my life. I chose my
family and felt committed to making things work.
I got a job at Astro Business Technologies and began taking classes at Los Positas
Community College in 2003. I was studying computer information systems and
computer networking to stay current with technology. Office machines were going
digital, and I was falling behind the curve. I knew I’d have to update my skill set to
reinvent my career. My business territory was Sacramento, California, and Jana and I
bought a house in Yuba City. We both felt comfortable enough in our relationship to get
married in 2004.
In 2005, I worked long hours with considerable overtime and traveled frequently. Jana
returned to her old ways, abandoning our family to go out to the bars the moment I got
home from work, leaving me to fend for our children. One night, I gave her a dose of her
own medicine and said I was going out to the bar. I had a few drinks and began thinking
about drugs. I had been sober for five years and never had problems with alcohol. The
problem was alcohol lowered my inhibitions and got me thinking about the stronger
drugs I couldn’t resist. I found some guy on the street who invited me to a drug house
where someone offered me a meth pipe. I looked at my truck, thought of my newly
rebuilt, stable life, and said to myself, “Once I hit this meth pipe, I am going to lose
everything.” Yet, I did it anyway. At that that moment looking back now I realize the
power of addiction and how I am just like so many others with my disease, indeed
powerless over drugs and that my life had yet again become unmanageable.
A New Low:
Things went bad quickly. I recently quit my job to run my own copier company. However,
I could no longer function doing meth every day. My relationship with Jana became
more volatile than ever as I ignored Jana and slept down in my office for three weeks
straight. She went out one night and had an affair, then kept seeing that man while we
lived together, rubbing her new relationship in my face.
I felt cuckolded and humiliated and made an extremely stupid phone call while high on
meth. Like a mother bear thinking I was protecting my cubs I contacted Jana’s boyfriend
and threatened to shoot him the next time I saw him. It was a veiled threat since I didn’t
even own a gun, but I, nonetheless, got arrested. I just wanted my family back and, in
my stupid, drug-addicted state, made an awful decision. I took responsibility, pled guilty,
and served twenty days in jail. The court also ordered me to attend Anger Management
classes, and while I fully intended to take those classes the day I left the courtroom, I
never did, causing me to violate probation.
Jana moved out and took our children. We sold our house as part of the divorce, and I
moved back to Tennessee, living in an older RV in my brother Matt’s yard. I built
computers to try and make ends meet, but my income couldn’t keep up with my drug
addiction. I spent everything I made on cocaine until the money ran out. I returned to
drug treatment for a twenty-eight-day inpatient stay at a Buffalo Valley, Tennessee
facility.
Another Chance to Succeed:
By now, my parents had moved to Tennessee and offered to let me live with them, but I
had to stay straight. I tried to get a job with Canon, but they rejected me because a
background check discovered an outstanding California warrant for failing to take my
Anger Management course. I got out ahead of the problem and took an Anger
Management course in Tennessee before returning to California to face the
consequences of my warrant. The California judge graciously accepted my Tennessee
classes and terminated my probation.
I got a job with Konica Minolta Business Solutions in Nashville in 2008. I stayed with
them for five years. I was clean and doing great at my job. The company made me a
team leader, and I won awards such as technician of the year. I was applying myself
and being appreciated for my skills and attitude. I made more money than I ever had
before, and it felt so rewarding. I stayed with my parents, saved money, and had their
support. On such a good track striving to be successful.
My Final Relapse:
In 2013, I had a steady girlfriend and recently moved out on my own when my father
was diagnosed with lung cancer. Shortly afterward, doctors diagnosed my brother Adam
with neck cancer. I began drinking to cope with the stress, and my job performance
suffered. Then, as per usual, my addiction destroyed yet another relationship. I felt
hopeless, unloved, and unlovable as I moved back to Pennsylvania and got a job at a
copier company called Doing Better Business.
I moved back to PA in 2014 because I had to get away from the harsh realities of my
family’s illnesses and that of my Father. I felt awful watching him slowly deteriorate and
lacked the strength to be there for him. I got a job in a copier company called Doing
Better Business but continued drinking, which led me to abuse meth again as I lost all
interest in women. My father died in 2015. My fear of watching my father slowly die was
instantly replaced by a strong sense of guilt for not being there for him at the end. I felt
like such a coward as I became overwhelmed with regret. How could I have been so
weak and selfish to have abandoned him in his time of need? I will never know that
answer. But I just couldn’t handle it.
In 2016, I got trapped in a house fire which I accidentally caused in a drug-addled
stupor. Emergency workers airlifted me to a burn unit in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where
I fought for my life and was in an induced coma as doctors did skin grafts. I could barely
breathe and was on a ventilator. I moved in with my mother, who returned to
Pennsylvania and bought a small condominium. I recuperated for one year, sneaking in
drugs when my other wasn’t paying attention. Even after causing myself incredible
physical pain, after a lifetime of self-induced emotional turmoil, I still lacked the fortitude
to confront my addiction.
My Crime:
I met my girlfriend, Danielle, in 2018 through an online dating website. She was living in
squalor in a rented attic with her one-year-old baby, Hunter. Her room was brutally hot
during the summer and stunk from cat dung littering the floor. Danielle had just emerged
from a twenty-year marriage where she had endured most of that time living with
psychological and physical abuse. She had a one-year-old little boy I fell in love with
Danielle and her son Hunter and felt I needed to help her. I had gotten a low-paying job
stocking shelves for Nabisco in grocery stores and used my meager income to care for
them.
Bills were piling up, and I felt desperate to figure out a solution to care for my new
family. We could not afford diapers and had little food. Someone from the neighborhood
offered me the opportunity to sell meth, and I seized it as a short-term solution to solve
our financial problems. It also enabled me to reengage in my addiction. I made some
quick cash and planned on getting out, but people who bought from me came back
wanting more. I couldn’t resist the temptation as Danielle, and I moved out of the attic
into a five hundred-dollar-a-month apartment in Mechanicsburg.
In February of 2021, I got a DUI in Cumberland County. I was high on meth, and the
officers took me directly to the hospital. I received probation for my DUI, forcing me to
pay a fine, take an online DUI course, and complete drug treatment. I failed to complete
treatment, so hopelessly engrossed in my addiction that I could not see a way out.
I began gambling and losing horribly on slot machines while continuing to sell meth. I
am horrified when I look back at pictures of me from the time. I was a barely
recognizable, strung-out, hollow shell of myself. Meanwhile, Danielle became pregnant,
and we got kicked out of our apartment because I gambled away the rent money. I now
had a second addiction destroying my life. One was bad enough, but two addictions just
consumed me. I was spiraling out of control like never before.
Making matters even worse, I failed to pay back money for the drugs that dealers
fronted me. I received drugs on credit and would receive more to sell once I returned to
buy more. I owed money to dangerous people and feared for Danielle, our unborn child
and Hunter’s life. The people I owed would sooner kill my family and they absolutely did
threaten to do so. To protect them I hid out in a friend’s trailer, putting even more people
at risk. While there, Hunter was abused by someone else living in the trailer. I felt
helpless since I had nowhere else to turn.
I found myself in an even bigger bind as my daughter Abby was born. I had no means to
make money and feared being seen on the street. I received a call from a friend in
February of 2022, asking if I could buy meth for him. I took his money and bought meth
from a source I had. I did this a second time a couple of days later.
Subsequent Events:
My mother moved back down to Nashville to reside with my brother, Matt. They invited
Danielle and me to come with the kids and live with them. I left in March 2022, unaware
that the friend I purchased meth for was a confidential informant working for the
government. I simply knew I needed to get my family out of the trailer and the horrid
circumstances in which we lived.
I helped my brother with chores fixing up his house and got a job building and servicing
printing presses for Mark Andy Incorporated. I mostly stayed sober with minor relapses
drinking alcohol rediscovering a sense of responsibility and strong desire to build a life
for my young family.
On February 15, 2023, I learned from a frantic phone call I received from my daughter
Olivia in Salt Lake City that her mother Jana had died suddenly from complications of a
viral infection. I was shocked and devastated by the news.
I was on my way to work February 16, 2023, when I was rammed in a hit and run
accident. I followed the car, got the license plate, and called the police. I wanted to file a
report since I was driving a company owned car. The police arrived, ran my license and
put me in handcuffs. I was completely caught off guard by the federal charge against
me.
Conclusion:
I have lived in a hell of my own making. I had numerous attempts to clean up my act,
yet instead chose to self-sabotage relationships with family, loved ones, friends, and
potential careers. I twice thought I had hit rock bottom as I clawed back my sobriety for
five years at a time, only to have life derail me yet again.
I have forced myself to examine my collection of poor choices and am horrified by what
I discovered. Yet, instead of focusing on self-hate, I am using the tool of forgiveness
because, as I have learned, even the worst of us are capable of a fresh start. As part of
my recovery, I quickly took ownership of my crime, pled guilty, and rapidly came to
terms with accepting my punishment. I plan on taking addiction treatment programs to
deepen my recovery while under the supervision of the Bureau of Prisons.
Despite prior dire life circumstances, I had never before turned to selling drugs. I also
re-discovered a way to legitimately reclaim my integrity, prior to becoming aware of the
charges against me. I point that out not to excuse my actions, but to point to these facts
as sprouting roots of my capability to finally tackle my addiction once and for all.
I now work as a printer technician at a company called Visual Edge Technologies as
part of rebuilding a life of responsibility and accountability. I know the road ahead is a
difficult struggle and that I must fight for my sobriety one day at a time. I have never felt
more capable, hopeful and determined. I have the love and support of my brothers, their
families, my mother and Danielle who have all agreed to hold me strictly accountable. I
also have two small children counting on me, and I must do it for them. More
importantly, I must do it for myself. I can only share with my children the horrors of my
bad decisions. Do my best to use my experiences in a manner to show them a better
path in life. Share my story with them so they may understand how doing drugs and
alcohol may be the most destructive mistake they could ever make. No matter what,
these things can be overcome in time.
While I am steeped in regret, I realize I must put things in the past to truly make amends
and maintain my sobriety. I use my past track record of failure and current feeling of
rebirth to fuel my renewed strength each day.
