This is an opinion column by Niagara Health Communications Specialist Michelle Pressé, originally published in the St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review and Welland Tribune.
After struggling for years with a drug addiction and its health effects, Jesse Morden is giving back by serving at the Niagara Health hepatitis C clinic as a peer support worker. Courtesy Julie Jocsak/St. Catharines Standard.
When you think of the opioid epidemic and how a person becomes ensnared in it, you might picture a rash decision made on the streets of downtown Vancouver or in the American Rust Belt.
What you probably don’t picture is a kid in small-town Ontario rifling through a medicine cabinet.
And yet, that picture isn’t all that uncommon.
It’s one that Jesse Morden knows well.
Aside from struggling with behavioural and mental health issues, Morden, now 36, said he had a normal childhood in Niagara Falls. He was temporarily on medication for ADHD, but his mom took him off it because it made him “act like a zombie,” he recalled.
Morden said he was 14 when he tried marijuana for the first time as a way to fit in with his friends. Not long after, he started drinking alcohol. That eventually escalated to him searching through his mom’s medicine cabinet for something more intense.
He said he found a bottle of Percocet, a prescription pain relief medication — an opioid — which has a high potential for abuse.
After Morden tried it, he said he “instantly fell in love with it.” He said this threw him into a spiral of bad decisions and misfortunes, experimentation with more drugs, and eventually two overdoses.
The first happened when he was around 16 after a concoction of ecstasy and meth, where his mom found him jaundiced on the floor and foaming at the mouth.
“It was terrifying talking to my mom about it,” he said. “There’s a history of addiction in my family, and I felt like I let her down. It was especially hard because my mom is my best friend. I kept taking her medication even though she really needed it. She tried everything to help me.”
The second overdose happened when Morden was about 25. He said he was in a shooting gallery — a dope house — and overdosed on opioids. Niagara Emergency Medical Services rushed to the scene, and he spent the next couple of days in a coma before being released from hospital.
“That overdose didn’t teach me anything because a couple days later, I went to the same house and did the same thing,” he said. “I didn’t care about anything or anyone. Drugs are so powerful.”
It was about this time that Morden tested positive for hepatitis C, a viral infection that spreads when blood carrying the virus gets into the bloodstream of another person. The virus attacks the liver, and if left untreated, can result in a series of health ailments, such as liver failure and liver cancer.
However, hepatitis C is preventable and highly curable. Morden received treatment at Niagara Health’s hepatitis C clinic, but his experience there didn’t end as a patient
“Everyone was so comforting and caring,” he said of his experience. “One day, I got a call from a social worker who must’ve seen something in me, because he asked me to be a peer support worker. It was an opportunity to give something back instead of always taking my whole life. I have the opportunity to have an impact on someone’s life, even if it’s small. That’s so fulfilling."
The social worker, Matthew Savoia, said that while some people do contract hepatitis C through IV drug use, that is just a portion of the clinic’s clientele.
“Hepatitis C is a highly stigmatized virus,” said Savoia. “Any blood-to-blood contact with someone infected with the virus can spread it. At any time in Canada, about a quarter of people who are infected don’t know that they are. It’s crucial for people to get tested.”
Savoia said the rate of those with hepatitis C in Niagara is higher than the provincial average.
Niagara Health’s hepatitis C care clinic provides services such as testing, treatment, counselling and support, and education. It is a multi-site unit, but in the community — at 264 Welland Ave. in St. Catharines and at New Port Centre in Port Colborne — more than inside the walls of the hospital to better meet the needs of patients.
On Friday — two days before World Hepatitis Day — Niagara Health is hosting an event for hepatitis C awareness at Montebello Park in St. Catharines. The event will include education about the services offered by the hepatitis C care clinic, other resources for hepatitis C, liver health, local addiction and mental health services, private testing and more.
“If anyone is concerned that they may be positive or is hesitant to seek care, they just need to make the call,” said Savoia. “They don’t need to have a referral or any blood work done in advance. We have a whole team of support.”
Morden, who now lives in Thorold, has been clean from drugs for two years and from alcohol for one.
“It came to a point where drugs weren’t fun anymore,” Morden said. “The drugs were getting stronger, dirtier and if I wanted to live, I had to make a change.”
Still, his addiction is something he has to face every day.
“I still feel myself pulled to it. Drugs helped me feel like a person, like I could socialize and be more outgoing. I’m still learning to be comfortable in my own skin.”
In hindsight, Morden wishes he sought help for his issues with mental health earlier instead of self-medicating. He also warned others to not give into peer pressure.
“Be true to yourself and take your own path,” Morden said. “I’m still trying to make things up to my mom for what I put her through. Even if you don’t, or can’t, love yourself, there’s always people who will help you. I’m trying to be that person now — a good person.
“Even on my worst day today, it’s still always better than my best day using.”
For more information, visit Niagara Health Addiction Recovery Services or the hepatitis C care clinic website, contact the clinic by phone at 905-378-4647 ext. 32554 or email HCCC@niagarahealth.on.ca.
