Target 7: Veteran who battled addiction finds purpose in helping others heal

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - The same man who was addicted and homeless is now saving others who’ve been in his boots.

But Eric Garrison’s trauma didn’t start with the military. It began 38 years ago in New Jersey. Garrison was a happy kid but behind the surface, he was in an unstable home and craved purpose. “I had love, but my parents did not know the love of Christ. We pretty much traveled up and down the east coast. Every single year was a different school and it was very lonely to be honest. I was always the new kid so I struggled with identity issues,” said Garrison.

Garrison admits he found his identity with rebels and was exposed to drugs for the first time as a freshman in high school. By 17, he was homeless, addicted, and lost. “I started to run the streets, couch hopping, posting up in abandoned vehicles, tents, abandoned house.”

Regardless, life waits for no one. Garrison got married, his wife became pregnant, and he enlisted in the United States Army as a Joint Fire Observer...the eyes and ears of the artillery. Now, trained and responsible for locating enemy targets and coordinating lethal firepower, Garrison deployed to Iraq within 10 months.

The battlefield where he hoped to find himself, instead made him question everything. But new life was happening back home. He now had a family. While he survived combat overseas, he could not survive the stillness of civilian life. “I was having these panic attacks and my mind was telling me there was a reason to fear for my life but really there wasn’t.”

Garrison came home with PTSD. Pains of war taking a toll on his body, he looked for help. “I went to the doctor and they gave me 120 Lortab. I started to go down that path of pain pill addiction.”

For Garrison, trauma mixed with drugs were no match for any man. Not even a combat soldier. “I just consumed myself in drugs and alcohol...anything I could find to try and disconnect from reality.”

Garrison finally hit his breaking point. The man who served and saved his country, was now asking for someone to rescue him. He checked in to rehab and years later used his healing to serve the people he once fought for. The more he told his personal story, the more it fueled his passion to share sobriety.

Garrison launched LionHeart: a faith-based discipleship program where men coming out of addiction, homelessness, and trauma find refuge inside a safe home. It’s called “The Inn Regeneration” and for six months, men live free of charge in a structured environment that goes beyond the 12 steps of sobriety.

Lance Yates participated in the program. He is not a veteran but he is a small-town farm boy who grew up in the church with two college degrees. “I always thought because I was drinking I was not nearly as bad as someone who was doing meth or smoking pot. I had that air about me because I grew up in a Christian home and somehow my situation wasn’t near as bad as someone else. I would kind of look down on those people,” explained Yates.

Addiction could have cared less about Yates’ “good guy” reputation. For this man of faith, it started with one drink. Despite a great upbringing, he found himself divorced, incarcerated, then homeless. “A six-pack wasn’t enough, then a twelve-pack wasn’t enough. By the end of everything it was up to a case a day.”

LionHeart met Lance right where he was in his addiction. No strings attached, just a willingness to ask for help. “I thought it was going to be some kind of institution looking place. When I got there it was a house. The guys are like ‘welcome home’, this is The Inn.”

The program has helped over 50 men in the last few years. Yates has been sober for over a year and is now serving on the leadership team at LionHeart. But not every story ends in a fairytale. Addiction affects 2.8 million U.S. veterans. The ugly truth is some make it out, but many don’t. So what cured Garrison? He explains, “In the town of Rural Retreat, I was sitting at a kitchen table and I heard this still small voice ask me a question. The question was ‘what do you love most in the world ?’ And I thought I love my boys the most in this world. And this still small voice said to me 'imagine how much you would have to love something to sacrifice those boys for it’ and I couldn’t comprehend loving something so much that I would sacrifice my children for it and my response was that’s impossible! And He said that’s how much I love you and that’s when my life drastically changed.”

Garrison and LionHeart are in need of a bigger home for participants. If you’d like to donate or get more information email eric@lionheart.church or click here.