For two young London men - what started as pain relief for back problems grew into an all-consuming addiction to painkillers - that changed life as they knew it.

Part III: Two Guys Hooked - by London Free Press reporter Randy Richmond.

Pass the two men on the street and you'd think nothing one way or the other about them.

Steve is 39 - a big guy, looks like he once played some hockey or football.

Tom is 34 - slight with a ready smile and a soft voice - friendly no doubt. Neither man wants their real names used.

Ordinary guys, you'd think, and describing the first 30 years of their lives, you'd be right.

They had good jobs, nice homes, steady girlfriends, cars, stereos, hobbies, sports, friends, social lives.

Then came the quick and easy - how all the addicts interviewed by The Free Press describe their downfall from painkillers.

The two men were prescribed Percocets and OxyContin and within 18 months had lost almost everything.

What makes these painkillers so deadly in London, say addicts, is that they're easy to get, either from the doctor or off the street, and they are incredibly addictive.

You don't have time for your friends Tom says. You don't want to do anything. You don't go to movies anymore. You don't eat out. Everything is going toward the pills. Every spare cent I had.

Sociable, soft-spoken and with a wry sense of humour - Tom worked the best with what life gave him.

A father who left him, but a mother and family who loved him. A wife who left him - but who gave him a daughter he loves and raises by himself.

No real education, but a good work ethic that gave him a job supervising crews installing furniture in large office buildings. My life was doing very well. It all fell apart.

He pulled his back one day on the job in 2003, but he took the right pills - a laudanum-based prescription from his doctor. I had never taken a painkiller before.

At first the prescription helped -but within a couple of weeks, the dose did nothing, he says. He started buying OxyContin off the street.

A few months later, his doctor learned he was taking OxyContin and cut him off his prescription. By then, Tom was looking for more than pain relief.

At first, it was like being young again and not having the back problems. Tom had a younger girlfriend. With back problems - sometimes their sex life suffered. With painkillers - their sex life improved.

So he climbed the numbers like every other addict. OxyContin 10s, then 20s, then 40s and and for a year a half on 80 mgs, three times a day. It is easy to buy off the street.

On London Streets

Why is there so much OxyContin and Percocet on London's streets?

Critics say the city's doctors are simply prescribing too much.

I have never seen OxyContin prescribed like it is here in London says one pharmacist, who has worked in several Ontario centres.

The few pharmacy break-ins in the city each year can account for only a small number of the pills his patients get on the street - says Dr. John Craven, associate director of Clinic 528 -which helps opiate addicts recover. The pills have to be coming from prescriptions.

Sgt. Dave MacDonald, head of a city police street drug unit, agrees. Most of it is coming through prescription diversion.

The number of those pills could be staggering.

Clinic 528 serves about 850 people and it's generally accepted that only one in five addicts seek help Craven says.

If the average OxyContin addict takes three pills a day - a conservative estimate - the multiplication means about 89,250 new tablets are on the street in London each week.

At one large city pharmacy, according to one city pharmacist - Percocet is the second most prescribed of the about 1,600 medications in stock.

OxyContin ranks about 30, although it is difficult to determine because it comes in so many dosages.

The Free Press obtained records of one month's worth of OxyContin prescriptions dispensed by one pharmacy in London. It dispensed 1,948 10 mg pills, 3,323 20 mg pills, 2,458 40 mg pills and 1,016 80 mg pills. One 80 mg pill has the oxycodone of 16 Percocets

Family doctors can hardly be blamed for the proliferation of OxyContin said Dr. Roman Jovey - a past-president of the Canadian Pain Society.

They are doing the best job they can Jovey says. The doctor shortage means family practitioners are busier than ever, he notes. It is rush, rush, rush.

Relatively few have proper training in assessing pain and monitoring pain treatment Jovey adds. Doctors must have faith in their patients.

Pain itself - is difficult to gauge Jovey notes. It is totally subjective. There are no tools to gauge pain.

Many addicts told The Free Press they received OxyContin prescriptions from pain specialists.

But pain specialists in Ontario have no official credentials or professional body overseeing their training or procedures Jovey says.

I am self taught. There is no standard training, no official credentials.

Two Guys - Continued

No one knows how many pills are diverted each month onto the street, but it's enough to fuel addictions. And they are not that expensive.

On the street, an 80 mg OxyContin pill goes for about $20.

A hundred dollars a day was not a good day Tom says of his spending habits.

Three hundred dollars a day was a good day.

He blew through a $12,000 lump sum settlement from worker's compensation - and the regular $1,200 monthly cheque, also from worker's compensation.

Tom started borrowing money from his family - and selling all his possessions to pay for the painkillers. I got behind in my rent, I got behind in my car payments. I got further and further in debt.

He and his daughter had to move to a smaller apartment.

She began to wonder, why is the television smaller? We were spending less on groceries. I was sending her to her mother more and more.

Each morning he woke up with one aim - scoring more OxyContin. His weekends with his girlfriend fell into a routine. It was just me and her, sitting there doing pills.

Steve's girlfriend gave him a choice - me or the pills. He chose the pills.

It wasn't supposed to be that way. He grew up in a good home - his mother a nurse - his father a teacher. He thought about being a teacher and went to university.

After one year - he realized it wasn't for him - and he took a job in a factory until he could figure out what to do next.

Seventeen years later, he was mostly satisfied with life. He made good money - had a relationship and a nice car. He went on camping trips with buddies, played and coached hockey.

I come from a good family. I never used drugs. I've had a good job all my life Steve says.

Standing on the line, shift after shift, though - his back got a little sore. Some night shifts he grew pretty bored and tired of it. One night three years ago, he mentioned his sore back to a linemate.

A guy gave me a couple of pills. The pills took away his pain and his fatigue. When he wanted more - he just turned to the people around him.

It is quite an epidemic where I work. I am not trying to say it is drug infested. But if I wanted to find the pills - I could. It is nothing to complain to a guy and he offers you one. There are just so many other people.

If I was to present a business plan for a methadone clinic, I'd open it right across Ford Talbotville says Dr. Don Fuller of Clinic 461 in Woodstock, which helps opiate addicts.

Auto plants, factories - any large company where men and women do repetitive work - are ripe for the spread of painkillers he says.

Says Craven - Clinic 528's associate director - I've had more than one person tell me it is easier to buy OxyContin tablets than cannabis on the streets in London.

You can buy it anywhere - coffee shops, factories, housing complexes. It is a huge underground network.

From Percocets, with their five mg of the opioid oxycodone, Steve quickly moved to OxyContins. By the end of his two-year stint - he was taking four or five 80 mg OxyContin pills a day - at as much as $40 a pop on the street.

One 80mg OxyContin contains the same oxycodone as 16 Percocets.

Your whole existence is trying to find that drug. I went places looking for that drug and I look back and think I don't know how I ever ended up there.

For a time, he got a prescription - learning how to trick doctors with advice from his workmates.

You go in and you say -'I've got back pain and I've tried this and I've tried that' - and you just keep going until they prescribe what you want.

His prescription ran out and he started buying from work. He didn't miss much work - because it was the source of his drugs. But he gave up his friends and most of his money.

On a typical weekend, he'd go home - make sure he had enough drugs - eat, sleep and watch television

It wasn't like I was partying or having a good time. I got to the point where I didn't care. I didn't want to go out and do anything.

Steve even stopped seeing his family. We were close. There wasn't very often a day went by that I didn't talk to my mom. I started avoiding them. I didn't want anything to do with them.

He'd go three weeks at a time without calling. Bills were piling up and no matter how much he worked, he couldn't stop getting buried in debt. Over two years, he figures - he spent $30,000 on Oxycontin.

I went without groceries to buy pills. I worked nine months of overtime and had all this money. Now I have nothing. It just took over.