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.