Few images illustrate Chelly Griffith's three-year nightmare with OxyContin better than a sketch she created while going cold turkey inside a detox center.

The 2002 drawing is of a faceless woman perched on a precarious precipice. Beneath the woman are the fingers of a demon that tosses pills at her from below.

Troubles began when she sought doctor's help for herniated disk pain

Griffith went cold turkey after it became clear that OxyContin — prescribed to alleviate pain from a herniated disk — had taken control of her life.

Griffith re-injured the damaged disk in 1999 by lifting her 10-month-old daughter, Katelyn. Physicians decided not to operate. By March of 1999, she needed something deal with the pain.

That's when Oxy entered her life.

Doctors assured her Oxy was safe

"I was told that OxyContin was approved by the FDA and that it was 'mobility in a bottle,'" she said. "I could hardly move at the time, so I said OK."

She started with 20 mgs twice a day. It made her feel tired and dopey. Her physician said the 'side effects' would pass.

She discovered the drug's potent pull weeks later when she forgot to take one of the 20mg tabs. "I started to shake. I was really sweating. I started sneezing. I had diarrhea. It was like I had the flu," she said. The sickness passed when she popped a pill.

An all-too-familiar pattern of steadily increasing tolerance and addiction

The side effect continued as the experts increased her dosage. Soon, she stopped eating, became constipated, and began falling asleep at odd places. "I nodded off on the toilet, in my car and in my yard," she said.

Before long she was told to take 40mgs of Oxy three times a day. "Whenever I skipped a dose, I got violently ill," she said. She lost control of bodily functions, and actually "messed her pants, while driving."

Doctors miss early warning signs of addiction

By late 2000 and early 2001, she pleaded with physicians to help wean her off the painkiller. But they kept writing prescriptions. "I got so ill [from the addiction] that I could not stop taking them," she explained.

Meantime, the statuesque mother of two, who stood nearly 6-feet tall, watched her weight plummet. When the Oxy saga began she weighed 200 pounds. She ultimately shrunk to 130 pounds. "I looked like a skeleton with pudding poured over it," she said. "My skin was sunken. I looked like a heroin addict."

Tensions spread to her marriage. She became curt with loved ones. She lashed out at her husband, demanding a divorce in December of 2001. "Everyone knew I needed help," she said.

Partial relief came in July of 2001 when a surgeon fused the damaged disk to her back. By now she was popping Oxy as if it were aspirin. "Without OxyContin I became deathly ill. My body had to have it to function," she said.

Bizarre behavioral changes

By the summer of 2002, Griffith was near her end. "I was going downhill in a hurry," she said. "I'd spend hours each day clipping the grass with scissors, cutting each blade one at a time."

She downed 18 cans of Pepsi a day and chased it with pots of coffee. Her diet consisted of three crackers a day.

"I stopped feeding my daughter and I started picking at my body," she said. The compulsive behavior turned truly bizarre when Griffith picked at her skin, then picked at the dime-sized scabs her festering created. Later she used tweezers to pluck out her hair, even her private parts were not spared. "It seemed right," she said. "I could not quit."

The torment of detox

Finally, with the help of her mother and family Griffith got into a 48-hour detox clinic in Rock Island, Ill. She likened the facility to a prison.

"This was evil at its worse," she said of her 48-hours of torment. "I had to dance with the devil. The only good news was that my kids did not see me."

Like all addicts, Griffith suffered through sweats, vomit, and shakes and near madness as her body purged. "I shook as if I had Parkinson's," she said. "I had no control, I crapped my pants. I jumped around, I ran into walls. I hallucinated. Something evil had a hold of me."

After two days of torment, she walked out and spent a week with her mother, who watched over Griffith and nursed her toward recovery.

On the ride away from Rock Island, the Sting song "Brand New Day" came on the radio. "I cried all the way to my parents' house," she said.

Today, Griffith is on disability. Her finances are a mess. She's fought off foreclosure and battled to keep financial liens away from her property.

But those struggles don't compare to her duel with OxyContin. "The drug ruined my life," she said. "My marriage is still together, but I lost three years. I have no memory of my children during that time. It's like I woke up from a coma."