From fentanyl to film school
When the climb out his selfmade pit began, there was no reason to think John Moore would make it.
The odds were not in his favour. If Moore was holding a deck of 52 cards, 51 were stacked against him.
He lost his business and was homeless. He was using fentanyl and heroin. He was functionally illiterate and had a diagnosed mental illness. He was living with the physical and mental echoes of two vicious vehicle crashes, one on a motorcycle and another on a snowmobile.
Even the least risk-adverse gambler wouldn’t have bet on Moore succeeding at anything other than occupying a body bag. And Moore knew it. “So many people said, ‘You can’t do this.’ ‘You’ll never make it,’” says Moore. “That just made me more determined.”
With the help of family, friends and doctors, Moore crossed his personal Rubicon. He’s now a Niagara College student, neophyte filmmaker and founder of a fledging project aimed at raising awareness of mental health and addiction issues through art.
The Victims, his first short film about addictions and mental health, co-directed and coproduced by Ethan Morneau and Petra Lane, was nominated for best silent film at the recent Niagara College FRAT film awards.
The film has been viewed nearly 8,000 times online and Moore and his team are using it as the launching pad for the End The Stigma Movement website to tell more stories about mental health, addiction and poverty issues.
“Coming out of my own experience, I wanted to be able to give a voice to people with mental health issues, with addictions, people who are homeless,” Moore says. “When I first went into recovery, what I found was a system that was completely fragmented, and that can be very discouraging. So if the work we do can help even one person find the help they need, then it is worth it.”
The Victims isn’t a retelling of Moore’s own journey through drugs and homelessness, but it is informed by his experience.
The film features two women — a homeless drug addict living under a bridge and a mentally ill woman contemplating suicide — pursued by a Grim Reaper-like figure. Using dramatic cuts and a soundtrack more akin to horror movies than public service announcements, the film suggests that death is the likely outcome for both women unless help is found.
The grim narrative is intercut with statistics about the lethal toll addictions and mental health takes every year in Canada.
“But there is hope. We do recover,” reads the film’s closing message.
For Moore, the notion that death was closing in on him wasn’t a metaphor. It was his reality.
From the age of 13, addiction was his shadow and around two years ago it nearly killed him.
“I overdosed many times,” said the 34-year-old. “The last time was after taking fentanyl. They had to give me Narcan (an antioverdose drug) and even then by the time they got me to hospital, I was barely breathing.”
That brush with mortality wasn’t the “moment of clarity” alcoholics sometimes talk about, Moore said. It was a hard fall to rock bottom. The only way to sink lower was to be buried in the ground.
“So something had to change, or I wouldn’t be standing here.”
Moore said his youth was far from ideal. Pot and alcohol, constant companions during teenaged years, were the salve for emotional issues.
His formal education, hampered by drinking, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, ended at Grade 8.
In his 20s, Moore was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident and was given opioids to manage the resulting back pain.
“That was the first time I started using opioids,” he said. “I wasn’t using them hardcore at that point, but I was using them.”
Despite his lack of a formal education, Moore said he managed to start his own construction company in Niagara-on-the-Lake. But injuries from another accident, this time on a snowmobile, lead to heavy opioid use.
His world fell apart. His lost his marriage, his company and his home.
Fentanyl was both and addiction and an escape.
Moore said he watched six friends die from overdoses. He tried recovery several times, but even after stints in detox he eventually ended up back on the opioids.
But after that final, almost fatal fentanyl overdose, he was determined to turn things around.
“I was lucky to have my mother,” he said. “When I told her I wanted to get into recovery, she told me that if I was serious about getting help, she would support me and help me, but she wouldn’t watch me kill myself.”
Opioids do not let go of their users easily. Withdrawal can be nearly as dangerous as an overdose. Moore said he had seizures during withdrawal, and had to be taken to hospital from detox.
“Basically they gave me drugs to help me sleep and stay asleep,” he said. “It was absolute hell, and I would not wish it on anyone.”
For Moore, opioid recovery wasn’t enough. If the Reaper was no longer on his heels, he had to do something with his life.
He hit upon the idea of tackling mental health and addiction issues through art and film. But he didn’t know a thing about making movies.
Moore wanted to enroll in Niagara College’s broadcast program, but his limited education presented a hurdle to clear.
In order to get admitted into the college, Moore had to go back to the beginning to learn in his 30s literacy skills most people learn as children.
“Listen, it was not an easy road at all,” he said. “But I was determined to do it. And people would tell me this is impossible, that I couldn’t do it, that it was too much. That just made me want to do it more.”
Niagara College broadcast teacher Peter Vandenberg, who talked with Moore about The Victims while it was being made, said life isn’t easy for older students.
“On the one hand, they can feel like a fish out of water looking at younger students who are maybe more tech savvy. But on the other hand, they come with more life skills and experience,” he said. “But it is daunting. Sometimes they are giving up what they were doing for something new. Or they need to hit a reset button and reinvent themselves.”
For a student like Moore, Vandenberg said film can be a useful outlet to explore issues they are passionate about.
If a project is “real, raw and really touches someone,” it can change lives.
“And that’s what John is. He wears his heart on his sleeve,” he said. “When a student can really dig into a project they are passionate about, it can have a real impact as opposed to me presenting them with 10 minutes of footage and say ‘Here, edit this.’”
Moore, along with fellow students Morneau, Lane, Adam Renkema, and Desiree Crete have launched the End the Stimga Movement website, aimed at dispelling myths and stigma around addiction and mental health.
“I want to show people that it’s OK to come forward, regardless of what stigma or judgment is passed,” Moore said. “I am plowing forward with the movement to spread the message of hope, love, compassion and that we do recover and you are not alone and people can and do return to society to do beautiful things.”
More information on the End the Stigma Movement can be found online at www.endthestigmamovement.com.
The Victims can be seen on Facebook at www.facebook.com/john.amoore.716/videos/vb.12619 01366/10212382137569490/?type=3&theater.