Adriana Ferns is a certified personal trainer who encourages others to be strong, fit, and disciplined, which are exactly the character traits she projects to everyone who meets her. The 46-year-old Warren resident readily admits, however, that the stark contrast between her life today and that of 19 years ago is jolting. By her 28 birthday in the summer of 2006, she was partying continuously, working sporadically, and struggling with a serious cocaine addiction.  

In a recent interview, Ferns reflected on that earlier time and the reckless decisions she made, including a disastrous one in response to what an acquaintance promised was “a great deal.” All she had to do was transport 75 pounds of crystal meth from Rhode Island to New Jersey, and she would earn $100,000.  

Describing that conversation and its devastating aftermath, Ferns said her reasoning skills were severely impaired at the time, since she had been on a cocaine high for two or three days. She decided she had nothing to lose. “I was either going to get rich or go to prison. Well, I didn’t get rich,” she said.

Ironically, her acceptance of the offer occurred shortly after she told a friend she was ready to give up drugs.  

“I think I was at the point where I knew this wasn’t going to be a continuing thing. I had to quit drugs at some point. I knew I would die if I didn’t. But then I got this deal, and I thought, well, I can make a ton of money, and then I’ll just sober up and figure my life out. This was what was in my head,” she said.

On the day of the delivery, Ferns was driving to New Jersey, the stash of meth stored in her vehicle, when the song “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys came on the radio. As she listened to the lyrics, she intuitively knew that things were not going to be okay.  

“It felt so bizarre,” she recalled. “The song is about being sabotaged. And as it turned out, someone had ratted on me and basically set me up to drive right to the cops.”  

At the drop-off point — a McDonald’s parking lot — DEA and FBI officials were waiting for her. “It was like something you’d see in a movie,” she recalled. “Helicopters were flying overhead. It was huge, but I was so high, it didn’t really phase me.”  

To this day, when she hears that Beastie Boys’ song, she says it triggers a response that she likens to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The system 

Following her arrest in March 2007, Ferns was sent to Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey, where she was held without bail to await trial. More than a year later, in the fall of 2008, she was convicted of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced to three years in prison followed by five years of probation.  

Ferns said when she first entered Passaic, an internal switch flipped. Unlike many who become entangled in the country’s prison system at a young age and never find their way out, she started taking steps that eventually led to a significant course correction.  

“I made a promise to myself that I would spend the time becoming better than I was when I had been arrested. I knew I needed to stop wasting my life and figure out how to make something of myself,” she said.

Relying on long-buried reserves of discipline and grit, Ferns made good on her promise. Within a year of her sentencing, she exchanged her drug addiction for a serious commitment to exercise, healthy eating, and mentoring other prisoners, becoming a model inmate in the process.  

In describing how critical exercise was to her transformation, Ferns said it allowed her to regain a sense of control. 

“Fitness was the window through which I could see and reach toward whatever was beyond the small, constricting world I had occupied for too many years,” she said.

Reading became a passion, thanks to the help of friends and family who bought her magazine subscriptions and sent books from local retailers. It was a welcome distraction from television, which was the primary recreational activity for many of the prisoners at the Passaic jail.   

Occasionally she would pick up works of fiction from the jail’s book cart, but what interested her most were books relating to spirituality and psychology. 

“I really gravitated to those subjects,” she said. “I never knew who I was, because I was high all the time, and I needed to figure it out.”  

She volunteered extensively, teaching foreign-born inmates to read and write English, and signing up as a speaker for Reality Check, a program designed to discourage at risk behavior in teens and young adults. In time, as she moved to different, better equipped facilities, her volunteer role expanded significantly as prison officials allowed her to teach exercise classes to other inmates.  

The interactions with those she mentored led to an understanding of the workings of prisons-for-profit and fostered deep compassion for many of the individuals housed within the system.  

“If someone is in a bad situation from the time they are born, they are doing everything they can to survive…When people are poor, they do desperate things,” Ferns said.

New facilities, steady gains 

She met women from all over the country who confided in her. Their experiences, she later wrote, revealed a unique set of challenges that she believes needs to be better addressed by prisons.  

“Women are offered fewer programs than men, and the services provided reflect little recognition of the traumatic paths that led them into the criminal justice system in the first place.”   

Ferns described the conditions at Passaic County Jail as horrific on many levels. Built in the mid-1950s, it was severely overcrowded and was known for being the worst prison in New Jersey. The winter she was there, inmates had no heat or hot water for two months. They showered by using a bucket and the hot water spigot that was used for coffee.  

“We would mix cold water from the shower with the boiled water, dip a cup in and pour it on ourselves to wash up,” she said.

Food, though unappetizing, became a substitute for drugs, and opportunities for exercise were scarce. She gained 30 pounds in three months.  

She describes the food at Passaic as exceedingly unhealthy. Fresh produce was almost unheard of — except for what she calls the “wooden bowl salad.” It consisted of one tomato, one onion, and some iceberg lettuce. Inmates were served apples and an occasional orange. Bananas were rarely available.  

“I remember when I once actually got a banana,” she said. “It’s funny, there are things you really start to appreciate when you have nothing. Little things are a big deal.”  

Mostly, she said, pasta, rice, cakes, and cookies were everyday fare, as was an abundant supply of white bread.   

“Four slices of white bread on a tray. Always,” she shared.

In 2008, inmates filed a class action suit against Passaic County, claiming conditions at the jail violated their constitutional rights that protected them from cruel and unusual punishment.  

Around the time of the lawsuit, Ferns and other federal inmates were moved to the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark. Since there was no gym there, she created a daily self-made workout that included running up and down stairs and doing push-ups, sit-ups, and tricep dips. At first, other female inmates made fun of her, but in time, they joined in.  A somewhat better diet in Newark, combined with her exercise routine, resulted in a 20-pound weight loss in six months.  

Then came another move, to Danbury Federal Prison in Danbury, Connecticut, aka “a camp for adults.” It was a minimum-security prison that felt to Ferns like a college dorm. She had access to an outdoor track, a gym, and much healthier food. She stepped up her workout routine, hitting the gym for two hours straight six days a week. Increasingly, other women would approach her for guidance and advice. 

“It was the first time I saw that bettering myself could have a positive impact on others…I had never thought of myself as a motivator, but here I was, motivating other women who needed the same things I needed,” she said.

As she started to develop a plan for what life would look like on the outside, she knew there was one more critical hurdle — addressing the demons of her past that led to her drug addiction in the first place. 

She could have taken a 40-hour drug program offered at “the camp,” but opted instead to admit herself to a more intensive nine-month, 500-hour program in the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution. Though the rules were stricter, she gained insights and tools that were critical to enhancing both her emotional growth and self-esteem. 

While at Danbury, her role as a fitness instructor expanded dramatically. Her days were filled with teaching and personal training, in addition to drug rehab sessions, computer class, and Spanish. She also played soccer and ran the soccer league program. She was ecstatic about the role she had in impacting the lives of other inmates.  

“If you couldn’t get fit here, you weren’t serious,” she said. “I had set up a real gym routine and system in prison, with free instructors providing inmates with tips for diet and help in the weight room. I finally had something to be proud of.”  

Setbacks and victories 

Ferns graduated from the drug program in Danbury and was released in March 2010 to a halfway house in Boston, where she stayed for 30 days and continued a hard core exercise routine. A few setbacks occurred in the ensuing years, as freedom was within her grasp, but she also celebrated huge victories.  

Bristol Total Fitness hired her as a certified personal trainer in 2011, and she has worked there ever since. In 2015, she met Cindy Chadderton, and they married four years later. She remains active as a speaker and a volunteer, helping to raise money for nonprofits, including local animal shelters.  

One of her proudest achievements was the publication of her book, Fitness to Freedom: Finding Health and Self While Incarcerated, which originated when she began jotting down notes on napkins and scraps of paper while still incarcerated. The book is part memoir, describing how Ferns got healthy in prison, and it includes extensive tips and guidelines on fitness and nutrition. Though it is intended specifically for women who are incarcerated, the numerous workout suggestions, recipes, and motivational messages are useful for any reader interested in pursuing a healthier lifestyle. 

Ferns gives credit to her editor, Kaitlin Murphy, for guiding her through several rewrites and urging her to use her own voice in telling her story.  

“It was a long, drawn-out process,” said Ferns. “It took me a long time to get there. It started in 2010 and I got my copyright certificate on Aug. 25, 2017. That’s when it was registered with the Library of Congress. I was really proud of myself.” 

The certificate, she said, is framed and hangs on a wall in her home, a tangible symbol of her complicated journey. 

Ferns is totally upfront about her prison experience and does not hesitate to use it as a motivational tool when necessary. She will tell clients, “Try going to prison for a year,” when she hears complaints or excuses on why they can’t meet their workout goals.   

With the benefit of hindsight, she has no regrets about the way her life unfolded after her arrest.  

“It was the first time I was sober in a really long time. It taught me how to get along with all kinds of people, and I became friends with almost everybody. If I had to do it again, I would,” she said.

Note: Fitness to Freedom: Finding Health and Self While Incarcerated, is available at Ink Fish Books in Warren and other area retailers, and on Amazon.