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Pills responsible for more than half of NH drug deaths in 2005...
Sam can list the friends he knows who've had their lives ruined by prescription pills as if he were reading from a telephone book.
"Dave, Rachel, Eli," Sam said. "OxyContin became a problem for my entire extended friend network. It took over us like the plague."
Sam (not his real name), 22, a graduate from a small public high school in New Hampshire, has been living and working for his father in Brentwood ever since admitting two weeks ago to a three-year OxyContin addiction.
"I've been to hell and back," he said. "But there are still people right here in this town that are slaves to it."
According to the state's chief medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Andrew, methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), diazepam (Valium), hydrocodone, fentanyl and morphine, to name just a few of the more popular prescription drugs, were credited with killing 96 people, more than half of the 147 drug deaths recorded in New Hampshire in 2005.
The overdose death of Winnacunnet High student Lloyd Chapin Jr. of Seabrook two weeks ago, though not necessarily from prescription pills, led his cousin and Seabrook Fire Chief Jeff Brown to speak out on the issue.
"It's the trend of the week," Brown said. "These things tend to go in cycles, and lately it's been prescription drugs."
He said most of his overdose calls are for kids between the ages of 14 and 25. That many of the pills are for adults and that they are many times being taken with alcohol are prescriptions for disaster.
"They're not just taking one or two either," he said. "They're taking handfuls."
While the deaths of young people from an overdose are typically the ones that make headlines, Dr. Andrew says the biggest increases are with 40- to 50-year-olds.
"There has been an increase in prescription drug abuse in all levels at all ages," said Brian Cressy, director of Quitting Time, an outpatient drug-treatment facility in Hampstead. "It's an increasing statewide epidemic."
The reasons behind the addictions are markedly different for each age group.
Sam says his first time was with a friend who had brought a pill over to his house. He says it gave him a comforting feeling, "and I didn't die. It slowly became not a big deal."
For young people, there are the similarities that many of these drugs, especially the benzodiazepine (anti-anxiety) family, which includes Valium, Klonopin and Xanax, have to drinking alcohol, Cressy explained.
Kids come by these pills because they are so widely prescribed to parents. They can then do what Cressy calls "medicine cabinet shopping," picking out what they want from their parents' medicine cabinet.
"We're a medicated society," said Richard Cram, program director for Family Mediation and Juvenile Services of Southern Rockingham County.
He said drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall are overprescribed to kids, and the ones who don't take them can give them away or sell them for a profit.
They have taken on the nickname "kiddy coke" for the cocaine-like rush that can come from snorting them, Cram said.
Cram said kids get involved in these pills, and then can't figure out why they need another and another.
"A lot of parents look at their kids who might get good grades and play sports and think, ‘Not my kid,'" said Detective Corey MacDonald, who is also the Portsmouth High school resource officer. "The ‘troubled kids' aren't the only ones involved in this. It spans all socioeconomic backgrounds, sports teams and intelligence."
MacDonald, who is a graduate of Portsmouth High, said he has seen drug popularity go from beer and marijuana in his day to prescription drugs among this generation.
For the 40-and-older generation, which Cressy calls "the forgotten generation," their addiction usually stems from a legitimate need for medication. Oftentimes, they are tired, their children are gone, there is more pain, which equals more pills and multiple addictions, he said.
They are also much less monitored than a child, and if they never stop taking the drugs, they may never have any idea of the extent of their addiction until it's too late.
Sam says he isn't sure when he actually became addicted, but he knew that he had somehow developed a problem.
Even if someone is not addicted, there is the temptation to supplement their income.
The same emergency rooms that treat the overdoses have also seen an increase in the number of healthy patients trying to scam doctors out of the very same drugs.
"There are people who make a living going into the ER with fake injuries to get drugs," said Dr. David Heller, an emergency room physician at Portsmouth Regional Hospital. "It's a constant balancing act, trying to do what's best for the patient and trying to keep them from having a side business."
Cressy, of Quitting Time, said that as a result of the OxyContin scare, doctors began prescribing methadone instead. Methadone is now the leading cause of drug deaths in the state.
Cressy said he remembers one woman who had a 30-day supply of the 80 milligram OxyContin pills. When she discovered that on the street the pills can go for $1 per milligram, the temptation of earning a quick $2,400 was too much.
That was how Sam came by his pills. Though it was expensive, he said, he became adept at lying and manipulating his friends and family to get money.
"I would wake up and know that I didn't have any money, but somehow I was gonna get high," he said.
The debt he racked up among his circle became so great that he cringes to think what he still owes.
Despite the growing number of adults addicted to prescription medicine, there is still a lack of their presence in treatment facilities.
Ray McGarty, director of Southeast New Hampshire Services, a local drug rehabilitation clinic, says most of the patients he sees for prescription drug therapy are between the ages of 18 and 26.
He also said his facility is one of the few treatment programs in the area, and that there is a constant waiting list to get in.
Portsmouth Police Chief Michael Magnant echoed his statement.
"The rehabilitation services just aren't there," he said. "They have all dried up in the community."
He cited the closing of the Portsmouth Hospital Pavilion as one of the most recent.
If a person is lucky enough to get into treatment, however, the fight is still not over.
In most cases, Cressy said therapy alone should last at least a year, and addicts stand the best chance of kicking their habit the first time around. The withdrawal symptoms can be hard, though.
For opiates such as OxyContin, "it's not life-threatening, though it is painful enough that you may wish you could die," Cressy said.
For Sam, it meant terrific soreness in his legs and knees, nausea, loss of appetite, sweating, hot flashes, cold chills, and uncontrollable shaking. Also of concern is his sleep cycle, which doctors have told him may not return to normal for more than a year.
Perhaps the most serious and lasting repercussion from his withdrawal is the "voice" that he now hears in the back of his head.
"It's a devilish voice in the back of your brain," he said. "And it keeps saying, ‘Do whatever you can to get high.' It's scary and it's not going anywhere."
For Sam, the thought of lying to his friends and family is more than enough reason not to quit his rehabilitation.
He also says he is lucky. He was able to fall back on his parents for support.
He is optimistic about beating his addiction and hopes his friends will, too.
"There's a lot of people who are on this," he said. "But that also means there are a lot of people out there to support you."
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