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By Abby Zieverink

STORYHIVE Project

Grande Prairie based documentary focused on addictions, recovery

Oct 16, 2021 | 7:47 AM

A documentary based on addiction in Grande Prairie will be making its way to television screens this fall on TELUS Optik T.V.

With a grant from the TELUS STORYHIVE Program, Grande Prairie resident Jurekk James created the film No Longer Anonymous, a 60-minute documentary focused on those struggling with addictions in the area and the services available to help them recover.

The STORYHIVE program provided $5,000 to 84 creators across B.C. and Alberta, to help their stories to come to life.

James says the idea to create his documentary on addiction came after seeing many documentaries on addiction, but felt there was more of a story to tell.

“There would be a lot of people telling their stories, and it would be people when they were down, and maybe death, despair, those kinds of things, and I wanted to explore a different side of that,” he said.

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“Like what services are available, are they working really well? Is there good funding for them? What kind of things are working for them?”

With that, James says he showed both sides of addiction, including interviews from people working at these facilities as well as people who have recovered.

James says he originally decided to apply for the STORYHIVE program as addiction holds a close place in his heart.

“I actually submitted this project on my two years of being sober, so I thought if there’s anybody that knows this field, it’s me,” James said.

“Because I knew the background in it, I just wanted to put it out there that this is what people go through, but I couldn’t sit there and offer my opinions on it. I had to have people tell their side of it.”

Among his research, James says one common theme he found was the lack of funding for treatment and recovery services.

“But certain people weren’t willing to point out where it would be, so detox was kind of pointing out there wasn’t enough funding for the treatment facilities, because there was such a long wait to get into them, sometimes they would be three or four months,” he explained.

“And treatment facilities would sometimes point their finger at detox and say there are not enough beds in detox because people need to get in here, and we can get them in here quick, but there are not enough beds in detox so, people have to sit around on the streets and wait.”

James says this created a loop of people wanting to recover from their addiction, but nowhere for them to go.

He explains one thing that surprised him the most during the creation of his documentary, was the impact COVID had on treatment facilities.

“I knew addiction numbers were on the rise even before the pandemic, so I was kind of expecting to go into the facilities and hear about how mental health issues had been on the rise for a long time, so hearing that COVID made that so much worse actually caught me off guard.”

The documentary was a one-man project for James, meaning he did all the videography, editing, interviewing, writing, and producing himself.

He hopes this documentary can help shed light on the stigmatism associated with addiction, as well as help anyone recovering from addiction.

“If I had seen something like this when I was younger, it probably would have changed my outlook on things, there were so many scare tactics growing up,” James said.

“They would always have someone come and try to scare you into not using substances, alcohol, cigarettes, and that has been proven time and time again to never work.”