Since 1987, Kathleen Webster has been living with HIV.

Going back to the 1980s, there are numerous parallels between her story and the Oscar-winning movie Dallas Buyers Club.

The film focuses on a man who learns he has HIV around the same time the main character is diagnosed.

So when the Yukon Queer Film Alliance and Blood Ties Four Directions Centre partnered for a screening of the film tomorrow evening at The Old Fire Hall, they invited Webster to introduce the film, speak about her experience and host a question and answer session.

As Webster, a Vancouver resident, recalled in an interview this morning, there is a definite "then and now” separation between that era in the 1980s, when there weren't known effective treatments, and the 1990s, when the HIV "cocktail,” as it's often called, became available.

"We got a new lease on life,” Webster said, making it very clear that the treatment is just that and not a cure.

Going back to the 1980s, Webster said many with HIV were "just grasping” with what to do, given the lack of effective treatment options.

"There was a lot of desperation and fear,” she said, recalling the debate over one treatment at the time commonly referred to as AZT.

Questions continued to rise over whether the drug's extreme side-effects outweighed its benefits.

Many with HIV at the time, including herself, researched and looked to alternatives, accessing treatment through buyer's clubs such as the one portrayed in the movie.

Webster remembers it was a "very scary” time for her and many others.

It was about a decade later the HIV cocktail, which uses a combination of multiple drugs as effective treatment, became available.

The treatment has expanded life expectancy for those receiving it, she said.

She also uses alternatives, largely in the form of nutritional supplements.

For many, it's meant being able to go back to work and other day-to-day activities.

Webster again emphasized though that while things have improved "a hell of a lot” since the 1980s, there is still no cure, and the treatment is not something you can slack on.

As Patricia Bacon, Blood Ties' executive director, said: "You're living with a chronic health condition.”

In her own journey, Webster said she realized she needed the support of the community, which meant reaching out to peers living with HIV.

"I wanted to talk to others,” she said, noting she also wanted to educate herself as much as possible.

Like many others, Webster became empowered as she began taking her health into her own hands.

That need for community and education has seen her become actively involved in the HIV community as an HIV treatment educator/counsellor with Positive Living Society of B.C.; co-chair of the Positive Women's Network; leadership trainer with the Pacific AIDS Network; and a research associate on several HIV community-based peer research projects.

She's also presented treatment workshops, written numerous articles for HIV publications and has served as a guest lecturer and tutor for a UBC course on HIV prevention and care.

While it would seem she has no problem discussing her experience, she said it's not always easy, and there was a time when it was a real challenge.

"I'm at peace with it myself,” she said, pointing out that it took a good couple of years for her to come to that point.

As both she and Bacon said, there is still a stigma with HIV, and it can be a patient's own internal thoughts on HIV that make it difficult to deal with after an initial diagnosis.

Bacon has seen a number of HIV patients lose contact with family and friends due to that stigma, she said.

Webster said she's been fortunate to have a good support network around her, and she hasn't experienced the rejection others have.

Both Webster and Bacon said they're hoping to see many people attend Wednesday's 7 p.m. screening of the 2013 film, which won three Academy Awards. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

"It's really a film worth watching,” Bacon said, noting it's not a typical Hollywood feel-good movie.

The main character – Ron Woodroof, as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey – is complex and not easy to like, though a bit of an "anti-hero,” as Webster describes him.

"Dallas Buyers Club is the story of real-life electrician, womanizer, and drug-user, Ron Woodroof, whose devil-may-care lifestyle comes to a crushing halt when he is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1985, and given 30 days to live,” says the Yukon Arts Centre website.

"Ostracized by most of his old friends, and after nearly dying from a course of AZT, the only U.S. government-approved treatment, Woodroof bypasses the medical establishment and joins forces with fellow AIDs patient and transsexual, Rayon, to establish a ‘buyers club,' where HIV-positive people pay monthly dues to access non-toxic anti-viral medications from Mexico and around the world.”

The film shows the stigma of HIV and patients' desperation at that time to find an effective treatment, Bacon said.