Seven years ago today, Russell Lanier was languishing in a Chattanooga crack house watching his life go up in smoke.
The house was always busy on Thanksgiving, Lanier remembers. Lots of drug users worked regular jobs and used holidays to get high, he says.
Lanier, who was formerly a television news producer here, says he got hooked on crack cocaine while doing unauthorized news research in the 1990s for a story he wanted to produce about Chattanooga's drug culture. He says his addiction ultimately cost him his television career and nearly his life.
"I was so arrogant," he says now. "I didn't see what I was getting into. I didn't understand how powerful this drug was."
On Aug. 18, 2009, a day in which he says he consumed $600 worth of crack and decided to take his own life, Lanier felt a flicker of hope in his heart. While looking at himself red-faced in a mirror, he says, he promised that if God delivered him from his addiction he would write a book about his experiences.
Lanier, 55, says his faith gave him the strength to get sober - after five attempts at rehab - and now he is about to deliver the self-published book, "Waiting to Die, Longing to Love," which goes on sale Dec. 10 on Amazon.com. It traces his journey from that first hit of crack cocaine in 1996 to his near suicide in 2009 and his subsequent sobriety.
Lanier says his 13-year addiction to crack began when he decided - without permission from his TV bosses - to investigate and videotape Chattanooga's drug underground. He says he befriended a prostitute and a drug dealer while working serendipitously on the project, and that the dealer convinced him to sample crack to help his reporting.
He describes the scene of his first crack experience this way:
"The day before I was going to start shooting, the dealer said, 'Rusty, if you want to understand the effect [of crack], you need to try it.' I realized the risk, but I felt like I was doing something exciting."
Lanier says despite some lingering reticence, he decided to sample crack just one time, a decision that came to be life-changing.
"It [crack] takes you to a place you've never been before and makes you want to go back and stay," he explains. "It puts you on fire. [The effects] are intense and immediate."
Lanier says after taking his first hit of crack he immediately started sweating and ripped his shirt to shreds. He remembers coming down from his first crack high gasping for breath. When the dealer asked if he was OK, Lanier says he responded emphatically, "Give me another blast."
He says his first crack experience was so exhilarating that he spent years trying to recreate that initial high, a feeling that is apparently common among crack addicts.
"The drug permanently rewires the pleasure center in your brain," Lanier explains.
Mark KennedyOver the years, Lanier's drug use made him an unreliable employee who missed lots of work days, he says, and he consequently lost his television job in late 2003. He worked in a different television newsroom again briefly a few years later, but his drug habit again derailed his career.
Lanier, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and a graduate of Southern Adventist University, said he continued to attend worship services even while he was hooked on drugs.
"There was a battle going on inside me that you wouldn't believe," he says. "I'd go to church to praise God and then leave and go worship the devil."
His turn-around came when he hit bottom one day in 2009. During his subsequent rehab, he began writing the memoir that would become his new book.
For the last few years, Lanier says, he took care of his cancer-ridden father in North Carolina. Before his father died in May, Lanier said, he made his son promise to finish the book.
This week has a much different vibe than Thanksgiving week 2008, Lanier said in a recent interview. He hopes that his first book will launch a successful writing career.
"There are people who have done less than I have, who are in the grave," he said. " Addiction is a dream killer. Recovery is a dream maker. You never know what is going to happen until you are clean and sober."
To suggest a human interest topic for a future Life Stories column, contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.