'I'm through hiding': After 50 years of addiction, Savannah veteran celebrates sobriety

Clinton Lanier has led an eventful life.

But recently, the Vietnam War veteran passed a new milestone: One year of sobriety. It was not a short journey. It's one that took Lanier 50 years.

"I feel a lot better than I used to," Lanier, 70, said recently at the Savannah VA Outpatient Clinic. "At this point, I can say that I'm sober. That's a good feeling. I take no credit for that because I couldn't have done it by myself."

In November 2016, Lanier finally decided enough was enough, and he paid a visit to the VA clinic.

"I started getting high when I was in Southeast Asia in 1966, and I hadn't been sober since," Lanier said. "But I finally got tired of being sick and tired, which is something I've heard many times. I made up my mind that it was time for me."

He became the first person to graduate the newly added Substance Treatment and Recovery - or STAR - outpatient program at the Savannah VA clinic, and he's been going to group meetings there ever since. Now he hopes his story can inspire others who feel ashamed or scared of asking for help.

"I'm through hiding," Lanier said. "That's part of the process. The more I can do to help someone else - I think that would help me."

Lanier said telling his family was hard, but he's glad he did it. There are still people who don't know, but Lanier says he's ready to go public. He hopes his story will provide hope in particular to addicts like himself who are adept at hiding their addiction from their closest friends and family.

"Most of them didn't even know that I got high," he said. "In that sense, that's what elongated my stay - I got so good at it that only I knew the secret and the guy who sold me dope or the guy who did dope with me."

Lanier says he got by undetected by friends and family because he never let drugs interfere with his ability to keep a roof over his head, and he says he really only got high when he "wanted to." But he wanted to a lot.

"I never really hit bottom," he said. "My bottom was mental, not physical."

Lanier drank occasionally when he was a kid and smoked a joint when he was 16. But his drug use started in earnest after he joined the Army and deployed.

"I was a kid coming from Savannah, Ga., at 18 years old going to Southeast Asia, and I was not prepared for what I saw," Lanier said. "I'd like to blame that on the military, but I'm through blaming people."

When his unit was briefly in Thailand, he was introduced to opium and heroin. Later, when he got out of the Army, he got into cocaine - it would become his drug of choice, and he says he would occasionally spend as much as $2,000 a weekend on it.

For years after getting out of the service, Lanier didn't reach out to the VA for help. That changed after his mother died about a decade ago. Since then, he was diagnosed with cancer twice.

Each time, though, he went back to using drugs. Even when he wanted to break the cycle.

"When I'd get high, I'd say, 'God, please, don't let me do this anymore,' and wake up the next morning and go buy more dope," he said. "I can't put that on God. That's me."

Eventually, Lanier turned to the VA again. He was sent to the clinic in Dublin to get sober. After about a month and a half, he came back to Savannah, where he met Charles Henry.

In Henry, a peer support specialist who helps veterans dealing with addiction, Lanier found someone who would listen and understand.

Especially pertinent was that Henry, who once struggled with alcohol, had been sober for more than 20 years.

"I'd rather be around somebody who is set firm in their beliefs and has a goal in mind and sticks to it, and that's the kind of person I intend to be," Lanier said. "I intend to have 22 years, too, if I live that long. Hopefully."

Henry says Lanier has been "a staple" of group meetings over the last year and a good example to others in the program.

Being successful at sobriety boils down to desire, Henry said.

"A lot of vets we get, they need the program," Henry said. "They need recovery, but they don't want it. They want the pain to stop, but they don't want to put in the work."

Part of the process, Henry said, is learning to treat addiction as a disease. It's also important for people who know addicts to understand, since those who are struggling may be wary of coming forward due to social stigma.

"We have a disease," Henry said. "We're not crazy. We're not moral misfits. We're not bad people."

Dr. Elbert Sholar, a psychiatrist at the VA clinic in Savannah, says the facility has been working toward providing more services in Savannah, including an enhanced mental health component. There are about 22 mental health professionals at the clinic now.

"We've taken away a lot of the barriers that used to be present," Sholar said.

Staff at the VA clinic is hoping more veterans hear about the mental health and substance abuse programs and become inspired by Lanier.

"After being 70 years old and living a full life, I deserve to be sober, not just for my family or even for God but for me," Lanier said. "… I've come a long way and I have not sacrificed anything. It didn't get worse. It got better"