Perry Gaidurgis (oldest of eight children) was released in 1979 from the Southern Maryland Correctional Camp after serving three years of an eight year sentence for an eight dollar armed robbery. As a heavily tattooed 21 years old returning citizen he quickly began speaking in southern Maryland high schools about his family addiction & mental health recovery process and life behind bars. While incarcerated he re-started his education with self-study and earned his GED in the Prince Georges County Detention Center. Perry later attended and later taught classes, workshops and peer groups at the Charles County Community College and the Maryland Office of Education and Training for Addiction Services. He’s been clean and sober ever since and has a long list of accomplishments in recovery. For over 40 years his story and writings, photography, film projects and interviews have appeared in newspapers, television programs, recovery books, articles, festivals, workshops, readings and blogs. He started Resiliency Arts LLC to create and provide multimedia content in the areas of addiction family recovery, prison addiction recovery, collections of memoir writings, genealogy family histories and photography, social media networking, addiction recovery comedy, expressive arts, successful correctional justice reentry and a soon to published memoir “Recovery: Truths be Told”.

More info: http://resiliencyartsllc.com/

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