Community Spotlight - Brennon's Overdose

“As soon as we got to the hospital, we knew, but we had to wait 45 agonizing minutes in a back room for them to tell us our son had passed away.”

October 2024 marks two years since the passing of Brennon Verhegghe, a funny, polite, and sometimes overly honest son and brother. Brennon loved to fish on the lake. It was the last thing he did with his family before he died, and it's the place where they chose to spread some of his ashes. His family hopes that sharing his story and his struggle will help others and raise awareness about the gaps in services that must be bridged if we are to change the course of the opioid crisis.

Brennon’s parents, Angie and Mike, and younger siblings, Donovan, and Reese, are the Godelie's from Norwich, Ontario. For 11 years, they battled Brennon’s addiction alongside him and didn’t give up hope that he’d overcome it with the help of rehabilitation and healthcare services. They remained hopeful even as his addiction worsened. The Godelie’s eldest son passed away of an opioid overdose at 27. He’d injected a ‘speedball’ (combination of fentanyl and meth), after a significant stretch of being clean.

When Brennon was a teenager, he changed high schools when the one in Norwich closed, compelling students to choose between alternatives in Woodstock or Delhi. Brennon chose Woodstock because of its many opportunities in the trades. At 16, he became close with a crowd who smoked cigarettes and marijuana. His family believes this was his steppingstone to riskier behaviour and harder substances. During those same teen years, his mental health began to suffer but he was waitlisted for the mental health services he needed.

When he was 16, neither his parents nor the police had the authority to keep him home or return him home when he was engaging in risky behaviour in the community. Essentially, he could just come and go as he wanted. 

In 2018, Ontario’s Youth Welfare System raised the age of protection from 16 to 18 years old, a change that came more than a decade too late for Brennon. 

“We couldn’t force him to stay home, but we were responsible for him until he was 18,” Angie and Mike say. “When he first started to stay out in Woodstock or Ingersoll for two or three days at a time, I’d go out and find him and tell him we were going home. One day we were a few minutes into the drive when the police pulled me over because Brennon had called, and they told me I had to let him go because it was unlawful confinement.”

Brennon began to have more significant run-ins with the law, which started a cycle of him asking his parents to bail him out, typically under the condition to stay at the family home, and then being released back out on his own only to repeat the cycle.

Each time Brennon was released from jail, his addiction became progressively worse. He became thin and had scabs on his face. The Godelie's felt something like relief when he was in jail because they knew where he was, and they knew he was sober and had food.

“When Brennon was using, he was paranoid and thought we were out to get him, but when he was in jail, he got his personality back and we’d talk on the phone,” shares Donovan. “When he got out, we always made sure he had clothes, we gave him care packages, we told him we loved him. He never missed a birthday celebration unless he was in jail,” Angie adds, “We told him there was always time to turn it around.”

Throughout his addiction, Brennon left home to use substances out of sight from his family, but that in turn caused ongoing concern for his whereabouts and wellbeing.

Brennon would detox from substances in jail but would often be released on a Friday without a prescription for sublocade or methadone. By Monday he had relapsed again while waiting to fill a prescription. By his early 20’s, Brennon was both HIV and Hep C positive.

“If there’s something to take away from Brennon’s story, it’s to have open communication because you never want your kids to be afraid to talk to you about anything, even if it’s an uncomfortable topic like using clean needles.” Brennon and his mom had very direct conversations about his substance use and he would reflect on what he learned by saying things like, “it’s a mistake to try anything new because you’ll chase that first high forever.”

More importantly, Brennon didn’t want to die and said, “If [ODing] happens, Mom, I want you to know I didn’t mean it and I’m sorry.” While the conversation was difficult, knowing his wishes for arrangements following his death by overdose brought the Godelies some peace.

Brennon overdosed six times before he passed away. Around Thanksgiving 2021, Angie and Mike could tell he was using again, despite having been sober for an extended time. Brennon was with his friends when he injected the speedball, and although he was administered naloxone, his parents received the phone call of their worst nightmares. “After forty-five minutes of waiting in a quiet room at the hospital and asking for a yes or no, so I could be the one to tell people if he’d passed away, detectives came in and said he didn’t make it,” says Angie. His parents weren’t shocked, but his death stood in stark contrast to their belief that recovery was possible.

Brennon’s story is like too many others in this community and beyond. Extensive rehabilitation programs, service coordination following release from jail, counselling and mental health services, and more understanding about the nature of addiction are all things the Godelie's believe could have saved Brennon. And could save others too. They want their community to remember that people who suffer from addictions deserve love and support- even if from a distance – and that it is not too late to turn things around. Brennon’s experience with addiction has been the main motivator for his younger brothers to work toward careers in policing and paramedicine. Ultimately, they want to serve their communities with empathy and understanding for those dealing with addiction.