A prescription for disaster for many

June 30--Nicki Bridges said her addiction to prescription painkillers nearly caused her to lose her family.

"I bankrupted my family," Bridges said. "I lost my house. I lost cars because I would go get title loans. There was one point where I had nine title loans out at once. I pawned every single thing I owned of value. I wrote bad checks. I recycled aluminum. There was not much I wouldn't do to try to come up with enough money for one more fix.

"I couldn't see the long term at all."

Along with the toll on addicts and their families, society pays a heavy cost for pharmaceutical addictions.

Authorities said the craving for drugs that must normally be obtained under doctor's orders drives not only the black market drug trade but other crimes as well, including robberies, burglaries, forgeries and false reports to law enforcement.

"The black market price for prescription pills is huge right now," said Morgan County Sheriff Ana Franklin. "You have people who aren't addicts who are going and getting prescriptions and then turning around and selling it, and then you have people who are addicted and can't get enough and turn to the black market to buy it."

Bridges, 41, of Moulton, said she looked to the street to support her 60 hydrocodone-a-day habit after her doctor refused to increase her dosage.

"I was the end user, and I was willing to do a lot to get what I wanted," she said. "I wound up doing a lot of unsavory things for unsavory people."

Bridges, now clean for 13 months, recalled that while under the sway of painkillers, she spent much of her time scheming.

"How am I going to get them? Where am I going to get them? Where am I going to get money for them? ... My family had to hide their debit cards and hide their prescriptions. It was awful," she said.

Bridges said she worked part time.

"Every time my paycheck hit the bank, it was totally gone before I got off work that day," she said.

Functional

Franklin said even heavy users often function enough to hold down a job. And with insurance picking up part of the tab, the financial resources of a pill abuser sometimes hold out "a lot longer than someone who has a meth problem or a crack problem," Franklin said.

Morgan County Drug Task Force Lt. Robert "Bones" Wilson estimated about 70 percent of those arrested by the task force are unemployed or disabled. Yet they still find the money to buy drugs, Wilson said.

"They're either stealing, dealing, or getting a check," he said.

Bridges said she obtained pills mostly through a circle of friends who "all used each other."

Some sold their medication but kept a single pill so it would show up on a drug test the next time they visited the doctor, Bridges said.

"If you can get 90 to 120 (hydrocodone) pills a month and you only have to take one, and you can sell them for $5 to $8 apiece, there's your mortgage payment. There's your car payment. There's your fun money," Bridges said.

She often found herself acting as a go-between for others, just to get a few pills.

Wendy Turner, 27, of Decatur, said she was one of those who sold the pills prescribed to her.

"I ended up what they call 'doctor shopping,' " Turner said. "I went to doctors in different towns. Doctors obviously don't communicate very well, because they would prescribe me medication, which I would turn around and sell to buy my drug of choice."

At one time, Turner was visiting five or six doctors who prescribed her a variety of medications, she said.

Franklin said it's difficult for law enforcement to prove anything in such cases.

"It's unreal to me that somebody can have that many doctors and that many substances, and we can't make a charge on it because (they have) prescriptions for all of it," she said. "They may be buying extra off the black market. They may be doctor shopping.

"But as long as they have a prescription for it, we can't charge them with possession."

Drug Task Force agents arrested Kevin Wallace, 31, and seven others during a Nov. 14 raid on Wallace's Hartselle home. Agents said they found a variety of prescription medications and other contraband.

Wallace, set to be arraigned today on seven counts of possessing a controlled substance and five counts of distributing a controlled substance, said he was heavily addicted to prescription pills but never had a prescription.

"I've seen people go to the hospital, break an arm or a finger to get a prescription for the day," he said.

Anonymity

Wallace said he never went doctor shopping or tried to feign an illness to get pills.

"I didn't want my name out there like that," he said.

Instead, Wallace bankrolled doctor visits for others or paid for them to get their prescriptions filled. A number of elderly people make a living by selling their meds, he said.

"Purchasing scripts is the best way to do it," Wallace said. "The thing people run into with going to the doctor -- their prescription is only going to last them so long. The way I was doing it, it's an endless supply."

Some doctors prescribe "big scripts," with 120 of each pill, Wallace said before rattling off a long list of medication including Roxicodone, Xanax, Klonopin, Adderall and Valium.

"I've paid for several people to go to the doctor and get that whole list, sometimes from one doctor," he said.

Wallace said he worked as a regional manager at a restaurant, working about 16 hours a day. As long as he was high, his feet didn't hurt and his back didn't ache.

"You trick yourself into believing you need them, when in reality, a Tylenol would probably work," he said.

Wallace said he spent hundreds of dollars a day to support his habit. Some addicts begin selling drugs to keep up with the expense, he said.

"People do things to acquire the money," he said. "Normal working -- you can't do that."

Others resort to property crime.

"People steal them, break into houses, rob pharmacies," Wallace said.

A rash of burglaries plaguing local pharmacies tapered off in recent years.

Pharmacist Lee Henderson said additional security measures put a halt to the break-ins at The Pill Box on Danville Road Southwest.

"We don't have burglaries at this particular location because we are Fort Knox when we leave here," Henderson said.

Henderson said he was behind the counter when the pharmacy was robbed at gunpoint in February 2012.

Franklin said she believes pharmacy robberies are on the decline because of businesses changing their practices and reducing their stock of coveted painkillers.

Henderson said he thinks robberies will actually rise as a result of the latter.

"The FDA is reducing how many (pills) we can actually have on hand. It's making it more difficult for them to get them," he said. "They realize around the first of the month, we're going to have it. Towards the end of the month, we aren't going to have it."

Henderson said another problem pharmacists deal with is addicts attempting to pass off phony prescriptions.

"We've caught a few of them and turned them in to the police," he said. "Sometimes you don't notice them, and sometimes it's easy to tell -- when they're using an emergency room blank and writing for stuff that's noticeably too high in quantity."

Authorities said medication is commonly stolen during burglaries and thefts, but not every report about stolen medication is believed to be true. Drug agents said it's particularly suspicious when the only items reported stolen during a break-in come from the medicine cabinet, while other valuable property is left untouched.

"They'll file (false) reports and then try to finagle around to get their prescription refilled," Wilson said. "Here's the thing: When you're on the pills, you will lie, steal and cheat to get them."

Coming Tuesday: Next in a four-part series on prescription painkiller addiction, making the jump to heroin.

Seth Burkett can be reached at 256-340-2446 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter @DD_SethBurkett .

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