Addiction began with prescription drugs local man got from your homes

As a polite, clean-cut, white collar professional, Michael Loverde never raised suspicions that he was a prescription drug addict.

He could feign back pain in a doctor's office or emergency room and walk away with a prescription for a powerful pain killer like OxyContin or Vicodin.

"(The doctor) would ask if I drove to the office myself, and even though I did, I always said 'no' because then I could get a shot of Demerol, too," he said.

When not getting his pain killer fix from real or forged prescriptions, Loverde stole pills from easy targets around the suburbs.

Sellers welcomed him into houses for sale, where he'd duck into the bathrooms and rifle through medicine cabinets. At garage sales, he'd ask to use the bathroom and unsuspecting people nicely pointed him toward their homes, unsupervised.

"Every house has something," Loverde said. "I'd go from house to house."

One open house in Rolling Meadows stands out in his mind as one of his lowest moments. While pretending to be an interested buyer, Loverde snatched a big bottle of Vicodin from a bedroom that had a wheelchair and crutches by the bed. After he left, he quickly refilled that Vicodin prescription and took those pills, too.

This all took place in the late 1990s, during the peak of Loverde's pain pill addiction - back when the former Des Plaines resident was popping up to 120 pills a day, and before prescription drug abuse was recognized as the serious problem it is today.

The issue has been in the spotlight recently because so many celebrities have struggled with pain pill addiction, including NFL quarterback Brett Favre, actor Matthew Perry and talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Stars like Michael Jackson and Corey Haim have died from prescription drug overdoses.

It's not just celebrities abusing prescription drugs. In the suburbs, authorities say the problem shows its face daily in emergency rooms, doctors' offices and pharmacies.

Recent statistics show 20 percent of Americans have taken prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Those drugs were mostly:

• Opiates (pain killers like OxyContin and Vicodin)

• Anti-depressants (like Valium, Librium and Xanax)

• Stimulants (like Ritalin, Dexedrine and Adderall)

Similarly, 20 percent of high school students have taken drugs like these without a doctor's prescription, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Twelve- to 17-year-olds abuse prescription drugs more than they abuse ecstasy, crack/cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines combined, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America reports.

Awash in drugsWhat's fueling the problem, experts say, is the sheer volume of drugs being prescribed and taken. It's creating intentional - and, in some case, unintentional - abusers and addicts.While there's debate over who's to blame for our medicated society, there's no question that the number of prescriptions being filled is skyrocketing.Americans filled 3.9 billion prescriptions in 2009, up 1.1 billion from a decade earlier, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.Before actor Corey Haim died in March, he obtained more than 550 prescription pills from seven doctors and seven pharmacies, California Attorney General Jerry Brown told The Associated Press.It's not hard to do, says Loverde, who has been clean for more than five years and is now a certified addictions counselor with his own practice, Family First Intervention in Orland Park."Doctors and psychiatrists hand out drugs like candy. People are getting OxyContins for sore backs. It's crazy. Toothache? OxyContin. Back ache? OxyContin," he said. "You spend more time talking to the receptionist about your appointment than meeting with your doctor. It's bring 'em in, med 'em up, kick 'em out and bill insurance."Tim Cullitan, a counselor and program manager at Resurrection Behavioral Health Addiction Services in Lake Bluff, says he has a patient who gets prescriptions for stage 4 cancer pain medications, such as Fentora and Opana, even though the patient doesn't have cancer or pain - just an indifferent doctor and an old health problem that is exaggerated to fuel the addiction.The suburban doctors interviewed for this story acknowledge that there are some prescription-happy doctors out there, but strongly disagree with accusations that most in their profession hand out drugs "like candy." Doing so, they say, is not only highly unethical but opens them up to potential lawsuits.Dr. Steven Lammers, medical director of Resurrection Behavioral Health Addiction Services, says what usually happens is that medication is legitimately prescribed, but then falls into the wrong hands.About 82 percent of the misused prescription medication comes from friends' and family members' medicine cabinets, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."I'm sure the intentions of the physicians who are prescribing them is to let the patients use their best judgment. But people generally don't throw pills away," Lammers said. "They spend money on it, and they think, well, if I ever cut my hand and I need something, I'll have it. Then their kids find it and go, hey!"Prescription drug abuse also is being fought, both in the suburbs and nationally, by new technology, government oversight and a heightened awareness among doctors.Dr. Ronald Thomas, medical director of the emergency department at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, says people don't simply come in to an emergency room, complain of back pain and receive a supply of Vicodin.Patients with those symptoms in Northwest Community's emergency room would be asked about their medical histories, undergo examination, possibly have some tests, and would be looked up in the hospital's internal database to see if their regular doctor had a plan for dealing with their pain, Thomas said.Even if the patient had no plan in the system, Thomas said doctors are conscious of prescription drug abuse and use new tools like the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program, a database that tracks what drugs are being prescribed to a patient, before deciding on the best medication to prescribe."This is not a free-for-all," Thomas said. "We do not, willy-nilly, in a wholesale fashion, prescribe opiate (pain medications)."Dr. Gregory Teas, the medical director at the Center for Addiction Medicine at Alexian Brothers Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates, agrees and stresses that most people do not abuse the pain medication that's prescribed for them. Some immediately throw the medicine away because it make them nauseated or loopy, he said.But many stash their leftover supply in their medicine cabinets, and it disappears after someone unsuspecting - like Loverde - comes over and finds it.Innocent beginningLoverde's descent into addiction began innocently. After graduating high school, he visited a friend with cancer and complained to him about how he had hurt his shoulder weightlifting. His friend offered him one of his Vicodin. After taking it, Loverde remembers thinking, "This stuff's great!" but never gave it a second thought.A few months later, while working at Schmerler Ford in Elk Grove Village, Loverde was asked to move a car in the service department. He noticed a big bottle of Vicodin in the cup holder, and when no one was looking, poured himself a handful and put them in his pocket. Soon, finding pills became the focus of his days."I don't know why I chased it. I just did," he said, noting that he rarely drank alcohol or smoked pot. "It's not like I had a traumatic childhood or a problem I was running from."Loverde stopped his habit cold turkey for a while shy;- earning a business degree from Northern Illinois University and landing a good job as a billing manager with Arthur Anderson. But an old drug-abusing friend gave him a handful of pain pills as a college graduation "gift," and it wasn't long until Loverde fell back into his old habits.After being arrested by both Palatine and Prospect Heights police for prescription forgery and repeatedly violating his probation, Loverde ended up in jail. Shortly after being released, his addiction escalated to heroin. Five years ago, when Loverde was 33 - and had spent several years in unsuccessful attempts at rehab - Loverde's family staged an intervention and saved his life.Now, Loverde is on a mission to use his life experiences to help others. His straight-talking, you-can't-pull-one-over-on-me style of counseling involves the entire family, with clients as young as 15 and as old as 71 who are addicted to everything from alcohol to heroin."Addicts and alcoholics do an awesome job of saying, 'I'm the victim and you're the problem,'" Loverde said. "The biggest advice I give to parents is, it's not your fault."Loverde's mother, Florence Loverde of Des Plaines, said it was a long, difficult road for her and her son to reach this point, but she offers hope to parents whose children are addicted to pills or drugs."It's not hopeless ... and you have to keep saying, 'It will be done,'" she said. "Parents will say, 'My kid has been to rehab 27 times,' or whatever. But you know what? One of those times it's going to stick. Don't give up, hold on ... and have faith."True20001435Mike Loverde does drug counseling and interventions at his office in Orland Park.Tanit Jarusan | Staff PhotographerTrue