‘Choosing life:’ Scranton man turns decades of addiction into a sobriety success story with help from The Wright Center for Community Health
Deep down, Justin Morgan knew it might be his last chance.
In August 2023, the lifelong resident of Scranton, Pennsylvania, finished serving jail time for involuntary manslaughter in the 2020 heroin and fentanyl overdose death of a longtime friend. Shaken by the loss, Morgan vowed to spend the rest of his life helping others with substance use disorder. First, though, he needed some help of his own.
“I relapsed yet again,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “I was working, I was trying to be a dad, and I didn’t want anyone to know.”
A roommate at a sober house where Morgan was staying told him about The Wright Center for Community Health and his own success with Sublocade, a monthly prescription injection used to treat opioid use disorder. When the man offered to connect Morgan to The Wright Center for Community Health’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence caseworker Robert VanWert, Morgan saw a way out.
“I didn’t want to go to rehab again. I just wanted to get the shot,” Morgan said. “That became the solution in my mind: I’ll get the shot, and miraculously, I’ll stop.”
Instead, Morgan continued using drugs, even after receiving the Sublocade injection. When those substances showed up in a urine test, VanWert and Sarah Marsh, a certified physician assistant at The Wright Center, summoned him.
Justin Morgan, a lifelong Scranton resident, during a workout at Brown’s Gym in Clarks Summit. Over the years, he has worked for several local gyms and participated in bodybuilding competitions. Today, fitness has become an important part of his recovery from substance use disorder.
“There was a conversation where they said, ‘You need to go to inpatient treatment, or you’re going to die,’” Morgan said. “You are going to die, and we don’t want that to happen.”
Nearly three years later, Morgan continues meeting regularly with Van Wert and others at The Wright Center, receiving the support he needs on his path to recovery. He’s also working to fulfill the commitment he made in honor of his friend: to use his experiences to help others on their own recovery journeys.
Born in 1977 at what was then known as Mercy Hospital in Scranton, Morgan was raised in the Hill Section by his mother and maternal grandparents. By 16, he had started using alcohol and drugs and committing minor crimes.
“I wasn’t raised that way, but I just felt that pull,” he said. “I set off on an entirely different trajectory, with drugs as the fuel.”
Morgan spent much of his 20s and 30s in rehabilitation facilities or detention centers, including serving a federal prison sentence for bank robbery. In 2001, he was among the first offenders accepted into Lackawanna County’s new Drug Treatment Court. A few months later, he became one of the first offenders dismissed from the program for failing to comply with its requirements.
“I was squandering my life and losing so many friends along the way,” he said. “I just wasn’t ready to stop using.”
Over the years, Morgan had brief periods of sobriety, often with the support of people involved in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He was just a few credits away from completing an associate’s degree at Lackawanna College in 2000 before a relapse knocked him off course. In 2012, he bid farewell to his grandfather, a central figure in his life who offered him unconditional love and support.
“That’s something I am really proud of,” Morgan said. “I was there and I was sober.”
In September 2017, he welcomed a son, born 15 weeks premature and weighing just 1 pound, 10 ounces. After spending 53 days in the neonatal intensive care unit at Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, the baby was finally cleared to go home and has thrived ever since.
Justin Morgan prepares for a set with dumbbells during a workout at Brown’s Gym in Clarks Summit. In addition to meeting weekly with his case manager and care team from The Wright Center for Community Health, he relies on his fitness routine as he continues his recovery from addiction.
Fitness has always been a common thread running through Morgan’s life, even when he was in the throes of substance use disorder. He worked for several local gyms, rising to the level of general manager, and participated in bodybuilding competitions, earning his United States Bodybuilding Federation pro card. Today, he’s building a side business as a personal trainer – another way he’s working to inspire others to live healthier lives.
“In addition to AA meetings, the consistency and discipline borne out of hours in the gym have served as a foundation for other aspects of my life,” Morgan said. “When things are going well for me there, they tend to go well everywhere else.”
Reaching where he is today took more than 30 years, culminating in the fateful conversation where VanWert and Marsh told him he could die if he didn’t get serious about sobriety. Coincidentally, VanWert and Morgan had met years earlier, when Morgan managed a local gym VanWert frequented.
“I had no idea back then, but here was a guy who had been struggling for a long time,” said VanWert. “What made things especially dangerous for Justin was that there were several illegal substances in his system.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had told Morgan he was going to die, but something felt different about this one, he recalled. He agreed to go to rehab, but walked out twice before arriving at Endless Mountains Extended Care in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, to buckle down and do the work.
Throughout the process, VanWert and the care team at The Wright Center monitored his progress and health, even helping Morgan obtain a critical refill of medication to treat – and ultimately cure – his Hepatitis C.
These days, Morgan works as a technician at Avenues Recovery Center in Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania, facilitating group meetings that focus on wellness and healthier habits and offering an empathetic ear, particularly to recent arrivals.
“I feel a natural affinity with the new detox clients as I’m all too familiar with needing to stay and wanting to leave,” he said. “The hope is that my own personal story might resonate with at least one person and thereby lead to him or her choosing life.”
He also continues to meet weekly with VanWert at The Wright Center for support and actively participates in local AA meetings. Over the 15 years VanWert has worked with people recovering from substance use disorder, he’s been part of numerous success stories. Supporting Morgan’s journey feels a little different, he said.
“He made a promise to help others and he’s been holding up that bargain,” VanWert said. “Seeing a success story like Justin’s is the fuel that keeps me coming back to work.”
In addition to continuing his own story of sobriety, Morgan is working to re-earn his credentials as a certified recovery specialist so he can expand his role in helping others. Although dedicating his future to helping others with substance use disorder allows him to acknowledge the help he has received, he struggles to understand why he survived decades of addiction when so many of his friends did not.
“When I say that The Wright Center helped restore my life, I’m not overstating or embellishing,” Morgan said. “I was using in a suicidal way, and a lot of people intervened in spite of my best efforts to destroy it all.”
His advice to someone who needs help to begin or continue their recovery is simple: Accept help.
“Entertain the possibility that there is some higher power that will keep you safe,” Morgan said. “It’s inexplicable to me, but there’s no other explanation for why I’m sitting here right now.”
What is The Wright Center’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence
Pennsylvania designated The Wright Center for Community Health as an Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence in 2017 – one of about 50 in the state. The program helps individuals in recovery reshape their lifestyles from the comfort of their own communities. Patients visit any of The Wright Center’s community health centers to connect with supportive certified recovery specialists, case managers, social workers, and clinicians who collectively help them break the cycle of addiction through outpatient care.
Justin Morgan, left, with The Wright Center for Community Health’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence caseworker, Robert VanWert. They meet weekly to talk about Morgan’s ongoing recovery from substance use disorder.
More information about the center and its addiction and recovery services is available at TheWrightCenter.org/coe.
