Lucas calls OxyContin the "Atomic Bomb" of painkillers. "OxyContin is more potent than anything people are used to having prescribed to them," he said. "People get hooked on Vicodin if they have 15 a day. Well, try doing the equivalent of 80 a day, every day. There is no comparison; it is like dynamite vs. atomic weapons." He calls Purdue's claim that Oxy is not addictive "a bullshit story." "Everyone has a point at which they get addicted," he said. "OxyContin will get any human to that point quicker than any other medicine."

OxyContin left Thomas Lucas halfway dead. It gutted his creative spirit, threatened his marriage and led him to addiction.

"I had lost the world and gained Oxy," Lucas, a former Phi Beta Kappa from Hobart College, recalled of his days at the drug's mercy. "Until I got off it, it was a nightmare. I was in a place I never was before — I was half dead."

Troubles began after injuries in a traffic accident

Years of back trouble entered Lucas's life in 1988 following a traffic accident in New York State. He underwent a spinal fusion, but suffered constant pain.

He visited a pain clinic in 1999 and got his first sample of OxyContin.

"It was presented in a very off handed, glib way," he recalled. "They said I needed daily medication. There was no concern expressed about the dangers of it. It was presented like any other medication and that it could solve all my problems."

Doctor-prescribed dosage increases ultimately led to addiction

He started with small doses, 10mgs twice a day. When that failed to quell the pain, the physicians upped the ante.

Within two years, they had him on 380mg a day.

"I would go in and say I still have pain," he said. "When I expressed having any difficulties, the solution was to increase the dosage." Soon, he became dependent on his regular Oxy fix. He also grew worried about keeping a healthy supply of it around at all times.

His wife would lock up the medication to keep him from taking too much. "She would put them in a lock box and I'd crack the combination to get into the box to sneak pills out," he said.

Lucas occasionally chewed the tabs to make the drug work faster. He also made up stories to bulk up his supply. "On two occasions I made up stories about losing my medication," he said.

"Once I said I had an accident in the bathroom and the bottle was hit while I held a baby and the pills went into the toilet. I used that once to get more meds to get through a month. Another time, I used the story that I had moved. I said the movers had picked up a box of meds and taken it to the dump. That got me an emergency supply."

"OxyContin puts you in a place where your body is so addicted to the substance that you live with ever-present terror of something happening to your supply," he added. "That was the driving force in my life, that terror. That something would happen to the supply.

OxyContin dominated his social calendar

"There was no social life," he said. "I'd only do things I had to do. My focus was to get through the workday. Every month, I'd rush through the first few weeks with higher energy and using higher dosages of Oxy. The last part of month I had to stretch what I had left and was in a passive and depressed posture.

"My life became narrower and narrower," he said. "I was living the story of a drug addict. I was constantly focused on when I could dose again. It affected my work; my mind was on the dosage. My routine was I'd run around high on Oxy during the first part of a month. The last part of the month, I'd be on a reduced dosage and be depressed and irritable and unable to help around the house with the children."

His marriage was secondary. His sex life was over. "The quality of my relationships went out the window," Lucas said.

Ability to work suffers

Once a gifted poet, songwriter and playwright, Lucas's creative skills suffered during his Oxy period.

"All that went by the wayside," he said of his art. "I quit playing music. Every area of my life: my interest in literature, creative activities withered and died. My relationship with my wife went numb.

"When one is focused on the substance, you are narcissistic and isolated. Instead of looking outside to others, I looked to OxyContin to control my mood and it controlled my mood totally."

Gut-wrenching detox

By Dec. 2002, Lucas was ready for detox. He spent eight days inside, using methadone to control the urge for the pain-killing opiate. "When I came home, I went through the most violent withdrawals ever," he said. "After two weeks, I could hardly get up from the bed."

He went from helping others through his training as a psychotherapist, to six months of therapy. He regained his bearings in 2003 and is now working part-time as a psychotherapist.

Today he calls OxyContin the "Atomic Bomb" of painkillers.

"OxyContin is more potent than anything people are used to having prescribed to them," he said. "People get hooked on Vicodin if they have 15 a day. Well, try doing the equivalent of 80 a day, every day. There is no comparison; it is like dynamite vs. atomic weapons."

He calls Purdue's claim that Oxy is not addictive "a bullshit story."

"Everyone has a point at which they get addicted," he said. "OxyContin will get any human to that point quicker than any other medicine."