ADDICTION TO PILLS GROWING LOCALLY

The Area's Methadone Treatment Center Has Seen More People Hooked On
Prescribed Pain Medicine.

Lee is a Peninsula woman in her 40s who once thought Vicodin would help her
handle her pain - until she found out she just couldn't get enough of the
drug. She's one of an increasing number of local residents now taking
methadone for addiction to prescription pain medicine. She requested that
her last name not be used to protect her privacy.

About three years ago, Lee's marriage was falling apart. Her father was
dying of cancer, and she had to face his suffering daily while she helped
care for him.

The stress was difficult.

A mother of three who also struggled with migraine headaches, Lee saw a
doctor who prescribed Vicodin to numb her pain. The medicine worked for a
while - but, maybe, a little too well.

The powerful drug not only alleviated her physical pain; it also dulled the
distress over her failing marriage and the sadness about her father.

"I liked the way it made me feel," Lee said. "I had a feeling of
well-being. "It would give me a lot of energy - false energy. I would stay
up till 4 o'clock in the morning and then I was supposed to be at work at 8
or 9 o'clock."

The headaches became an excuse to use Vicodin.

But the amount her doctor gave her - a typical dosage is 5 milligrams every
four to six hours - just didn't seem to work after a while. Lee had to take
more and more to soothe the cravings. "I didn't take it for two or three
days and I went through severe withdrawal," Lee said.

In a matter of months, Lee was addicted. "That's when the madness started,"
she said.

Lee's doctor grew uncomfortable with her demands for more Vicodin and cut
her off. "I knew I would have to find some other place to get them," she said.

Lee did Internet searches and found a dependable yet costly way to get the
supply of drugs she desired mostly from out-of-state doctors. She was
taking 35 to 50 pills a day. "I would take them every three or four hours
and take four to seven (pills) at a time."

She's one of an increasing number of Peninsula residents struggling with an
addiction to pain medicine who go to the Hampton Roads Clinic and Support
Services Center for methadone treatment.

Lee said when she was abusing Vicodin she could always find a doctor on the
Internet who would prescribe a 90-day supply - as long as she came up with
$90 to $150 for a phone consultation that might only last 30 seconds. She
used one local doctor as a backup.

The online doctors would ask her little more than what her problem was
before offering 90 pills with two refills. Only later did she learn that
many of the doctors had questionable medical backgrounds and had been
arrested for abusive practices.

About 15 percent of the 180 patients in the Hampton Roads Clinic's
methadone program are being treated for an addiction to prescription pain
medicine, said Clinical Services Administrator Stephanie Savage. That's up
from about 2 percent five years ago, Savage said.

Most of the clinic's pain medicine addicts began abusing the drugs after
they were prescribed for an illness or injury, she said. "Some got on
(prescription drugs) for trauma, a car crash, a broken bone," Savage said.
"They got on it. And had trouble getting off of it."

Nationally, drug treatment admissions for prescription pain medicine
addiction doubled from 1 percent to 2 percent of overall admissions from
1992 to 2002, according to a federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration study.

At The Counseling Center, which offers outpatient drug treatment in
Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg, about 5 percent of its 500 clients
are being treated for addiction to prescription medicine, said center
director Dianne Taylor. "A lot of people are turning to medications to make
themselves feel better," she said.

Taylor thinks the proliferation of advertisements for prescription medicine
makes it more likely for people to visit doctors seeking relief from pain
or anxiety, requesting specific drugs.

Those with a predisposition to addiction will even convince themselves they
have pain to justify getting more medicine, Taylor said.

The warning sign of addiction happens when they don't think they can do
without it.

When they start switching doctors and pharmacies to get more than the
approved dosage, they're not only feeding an addiction, they're violating
the law.

The Virginia State Police nearly doubled the number of arrests they made
for prescription drug fraud from 222 in 2003 to 434 in 2004, said Sgt. J.C.
Lewis, the drug diversion coordinator. Today, 15 special agents investigate
cases of drug fraud throughout the state, often following up on tips from
pharmacists.

Lee had to juggle doctors to get the amount of Vicodin she wanted. And
because pharmacies aren't supposed to dispense medicine beyond the
prescribed amount, she constantly made sure her medicine was coming from
different pharmacies.

The type of doctor shopping Lee engaged in would be considered illegal,
Lewis said, if she failed to tell doctors about other prescriptions she was
using.

Lee used a flow chart to keep her sources of Vicodin straight, and
overnight delivery services so she could get the drugs the next morning.
"I've chased down the UPS truck more times than I'd like to count," said Lee.

If she didn't have the medicine, she'd start suffering from withdrawal.
"The yawning would start," she said. "Every muscle in my body would start
aching."

There were other downsides too. "I had an inability to concentrate," she
said. "I was very sleepy on the job. It was an awful way to live."

Lee said she had maxed out her credit cards. She wasn't performing well at
work and wasn't as involved with her children as she wanted to be. About
two years ago, her brother, who knew about her problem, learned about the
Hampton Roads Clinic over the Internet and talked Lee in to going there.

Now she takes methadone daily and goes to counseling sessions weekly.

Although she's separated from her husband, Lee says her life has improved
tremendously.

"I've gotten my credit cards paid off," she said. "My health situation has
drastically improved." Lee said she's doing better at work, and is very
involved in her children's lives. "I certainly spend more time with them
and now and I'm much more in tune with what they're doing in school."

Methadone prevents her from having withdrawal symptoms and it blocks the
soothing feelings that Vicodin use to give her.

Lee's slowly reducing the amount of methadone she takes each day. "My goal
is to get off completely," she said. "I want to be clean so bad."