NOT ALL ADDICTS FIT PROFILE

A lot of people don't have a lot of sympathy for drug addicts. Many
view them as lazy, selfish pleasure-seekers who could solve their
problems with a bit of gumption.

Let 'em rot, some say. Good riddance. And I have to admit that
sometimes, I agree.

But there are a lot of addicts who don't fit the stereotype. Like
Andrew Hooper.

I first heard about Hooper's plight a few weeks ago. After reading my
column about the problems afflicting the area around the methadone
clinic on Dundas Street near William Street, Hooper's mother sent me
a note stating most people don't know "the whole story" about addiction.

Yesterday, Hooper told me how his problems started in 1997 when he
was a passenger in a car that slammed into a pole near Windsor.

The impact shattered Hooper's pelvis, broke his hip, ribs, arm and
elbow and gave him a concussion. He was in a hospital for several
weeks, then spent a month in a wheelchair. Today, he walks with a cane.

In many ways, Hooper was lucky. He's alive, he's mobile and mentally
sharp. But the crash left him in chronic pain -- and addicted to painkillers.

Hooper says when he left the hospital, he was taking Demerol. Later,
he tried Tylenol 3s, but when their effectiveness wore off, he was
prescribed another powerful painkiller, Percocet.

Then, he says, arthritis set in and his doctor prescribed an
assortment of powerful and highly addictive painkillers, including
OxyContin, MSContin and Oxycodone.

Hooper says he had "a fabulous physician" who monitored the treatment
for his chronic pain, including the dull aching in his hip, the
burning in his pelvis and the tightness in his neck.

But then about three years ago, his doctor left his practice and
Hooper's world caved in.

"When my prescriptions ran out, I had to start buying medication," he
says. "I tried to go days without it, but I couldn't get out of bed
or anything (because of the pain) and I thought, 'I have to do this.'
And so I spent lots of money buying drugs off the street."

Hooper admits without a doctor's supervision, he was taking more
medication than he was supposed to because, "I felt better when I did
take it. And that's the trap, right?"

Hooper says the low point came about seven months ago, when he was
spending about $400 a day to buy OxyContin on the street. He says he
bought the drugs "pretty much anywhere," including the area around
the methadone clinic on Dundas Street.

With his long dependence and high tolerance, Hooper knew he was in
trouble. But he says the shame and expense was far easier to bear
than the "ungodly" pain of withdrawal.

"You think of the worst flu you've ever had, and multiply those
symptoms -- like chills, hot-cold flashes and wanting to crawl out of
your own skin -- by about tenfold," he says. "There's vomiting,
extensive diarrhea, you can't eat anything . . . That's the worst
thing I've ever been through."

Hooper says he enrolled briefly at the methadone clinic, but the dose
was far too low to control his craving for the painkillers. For a
while, he found a helpful doctor at a local walk-in clinic. But then
that doctor left the clinic.

Hooper says he sought help at various local agencies, but to no
avail. Some have lengthy waiting lists, while some offer only counselling.

"Every treatment centre I talked to, I begged them, 'Please, I'm at
the end of my rope, do something,' " he says. "And no one did anything."

Broke and suicidal, Hooper says he finally found a local addiction
psychiatrist who is slowly helping get his life back on track.

"Things are still rough," he says. "But what I have now, at least, is hope."

In the end, Hooper insists there are far too few addiction treatment
centres in this city and far too much willingness to prescribe
painkillers and let patients cope with the consequences on their own.

"The system allows you to get into it very easily," he says, "and
then doesn't help you to get out."