"There was no one there like me," Greeson said of the detox hospital in San Angelo, Texas. "I am there with alcoholics and heroin addicts, and crack heads. No one was there for painkillers. I was in there with people who got high. I was not like that. I wanted to get rid of my pain and ended up in that sorry position." "I actually thought I was going to die," he said. "I felt as bad physically as you could. I sat up in my bed and was throwing up all over my feet." Greeson's newest physician, Dr. Paul Harris of Abilene, says that "Oxy is what they should give if you have inoperable cancer," Greeson recalled. "He was appalled I was given the drug." Greeson remains bitter about the Oxy experience. "I was angry that I was given stuff that would make me almost die," he said. "I was never told about the symptoms. I was angry I was never told that I'd need help coming off it." In the end, Greeson's strong will and his faith saved him.

Emerson Greeson was once a man who embodied the All-American ideal. He was a star athlete in the football haven of West Texas, a coach on two all-state high school squads, active in his church, a loving husband and a devoted dad.

Then OxyContin blind-sided Greeson and sent him on a six-month journey into the pits of suffering usually reserved for street junkies.

Troubles began when he sought doctor's help for severe headaches

The great unraveling started in 1995 when the former high school quarterback and college linebacker suffered debilitating headaches, perhaps as a result of collisions during his gridiron glory days.

"It was awful," Greeson said in a soft Texas accent.

He tried just about everything to deal with the pain. He changed his diet, visited a chiropractor, saw a neurosurgeon. No one had a solid clue. "I thought I had Lyme disease," he explained.

In 1997, surgeons fused two vertebrae in his neck. But the pain never let up.

He moved to Abilene in 1999 and visited a pain doctor in 2000. The physician said OxyContin could handle the job. And so, like others before him, Greeson stepped into the abyss and quickly found his Oxy journey far worse than the initial pain.

As his body became tolerant, his doctors steadily increased the dosage

Like so many other Oxy victims, he started out with small doses, 20-mg tabs, but quickly upped the levels, because the lower amounts were no longer handling the pain. "I'd call back the doctor and tell him the pills did not last during the day," he said. "So they upped the dosage."

"I'd take it and have a numbing effect," he said. "It would last a while, but by midday I'd hurt again. It was not better than anything else I had ever taken; it was not like I got a big high off it."

The doctors upped his dosage, peaking at an astounding 640mg of Oxy per day. He was fairly preoccupied with the drug, saying that he was always concerned about running out of it.

"It got to the point where I was taking a lot of it," he said. "When you take eight of them a day, that is a good punch. I was walking around exhausted all the time. One 80mg tablet would knock most people out, but I had built up a resistance. It just left me exhausted. I never felt rested."

Troubling personality changes

The drug also changed his personality. He described himself as very outgoing before he started taking Oxy. But his attitude changed as the Oxy dosages increased.

"I have always been kind of a people person," he said. "I enjoy people, but the longer I was on OxyContin, the further away from people I became. I did not want to be around people. And I am still like that today."

He stopped going out with friends and preferred a reclusive life. "I wanted to stay home where it was safe," he said. Nightly trips to the bathroom were constant. He'd awaken several times a night to cleanse his body of the Oxy poison.

Clear signs of addiction: vicious withdrawal symptoms

The moment of truth about his addiction emerged in the fall of 2001. That was the day he ran out of Oxy. "I took it the evening before," he said. "I got up and saw I was out."

Greeson went to work while his wife traveled three hours to get another prescription. "The longer the day went on, the worse I felt," Greeson said. "I made it to school and I left faint, and sweating. I felt like passing out. When I got home, it was like my skin was on fire and my heart was racing."

He called his doctor and said he was out of Oxy. They scolded him for missing a treatment. "The nurse told me to not stop taking it," he said. "She said that was my problem."

That's the moment Greeson knew he had become hooked. He spent the afternoon in a crazed state. He could not get comfortable. He sat in the shower to cool down. His skin remained aflame and he struggled to breathe. "I sat in the shower for 30 minutes, hoping the water would make me feel better. I was like one of those guys you see on television who is a heroin addict."

His wife returned home and found him cowering under the covers, shivering. He popped an Oxy and within 30 minutes, the suffering subsided. "I was fine, but I was scared to death," he said. "I knew then that I can't take something if it is going to make me feel like this."

Final chapter of the OxyContin nightmare: Detox

He consulted a physician who recommended a hospital stay and rehabilitation. "The doctor said I can get off this, but that I would need help," Greeson said. "Had I known this might happen, I would have never gotten on the stuff."

Not long after Thanksgiving 2001, Greeson awoke in full withdrawal. "I was thinking I was fixing to die," he said.

So off he went to rehab, to join the junkies and drug addicts. "There was no one there like me," he said of the detox hospital in San Angelo, Texas. "I am there with alcoholics and heroin addicts, and crack heads. No one was there for painkillers. I was in there with people who got high. I was not like that. I wanted to get rid of my pain and ended up in that sorry position."

He hit "rock bottom" on day three of his stay. "I actually thought I was going to die," he said. "I felt as bad physically as you could. I sat up in my bed and was throwing up all over my feet." He spent 12 days inside the rehab hospital.

"I remember that I could not focus on anything that was over five yards away," he said. "It was awful. I was the lowest form of life. There was no pride. I was as low as you can get." He had diarrhea and no appetite. His weight, once an imposing 215, slipped to about 187.

"The nurses told my wife that heroin addicts don't have it as bad as I have it," he said. Finally, after 12 days of isolation in rehab, he got out and went back home. But he was hardly cured. "I could not sleep. I had diarrhea and I was not eating," he said.

One day, his heart began to race uncontrollably. The family took him to a hospital. Once again he hit rock bottom. "I was down with depression," he said. "I could have given up right then. It would have been easy for me to die. I was depressed because of the Oxy. I was depressed from withdrawal."

Meanwhile, the headaches that led to the Oxy prescription came back harder than ever. "I did not want to bother the nurse, but my head hurt so much, I called for help," he said. "I was on my knees in the bed just rocking back and forth, banging my head into the mattress. I said, 'please give me something, I'm dying.'" All they offered was a 25mg tab of Benadryl. Hardly enough to sate a man used to 640mg of Oxy.

"I started losing so much muscle mass that I had trouble walking"

He spent five days in the hospital. His weight continued to fall. "I started losing so much muscle mass that I had trouble walking," the 40-year-old former athlete said. "I was so weak; I had to sit in the shower, because I could not stand. I had to have help to bathroom and shower. I had to sit down in the shower because I could not stand."

His weight ultimately fell to the same level he carried as a junior in high school. 'I looked like I was in a death camp," he said. "People could not believe what I looked like. I had no muscle tone at all. You could see my ribs."

As he lay in the hospital, Greeson saw his own death. "I could see my self laying in a casket. I could see myself dying and I did not care," he said. "I worried about my family. I did not know how they'd get along. But dying was better than what I was going through."

The hospital stay strained his family life. "This was really hard on them," he said of his wife and 13-year-old daughter. "When I was in the hospital, my wife was crying in the hallway. I heard her say, 'I just want my husband back.' That is when I knew I was in bad shape."

After five days inside the hospital, Greeson told doctors he needed the familiar surroundings of home. "I told them that if I did not get home, I would not live," he said. The physicians relented.

After a week in the comfort of family, Greeson eyed a pile of pecans left over from Christmas. It was the first time food tasted good. The withdrawal pains continued for several months, but the worst was behind him. "I slowly got my energy back and got motivated to move," he said.

Walks to the corner were a struggle. "I told my wife to walk with me to the end of the block. I was exhausted," he said. "I could not get too far from the house because I was afraid I could not get back. I looked like an elderly person walking around and I could still not focus beyond five yards in front of me."

Lingering damage of OxyContin

Simple things like reading a newspaper or riding in a car were nearly impossible. "My eyes saw everything," he explained. "Riding in a car was exhausting. My eyes took everything in. It was like they were hit with billions of stimuli. When you come off Oxy, anything that moves registers in the brain. When I opened a newspaper, I saw every word at once. I could not focus on one thing."

With time, his body cleansed. And like Neo, the hero from "The Matrix," Greeson began to re-awaken. "It was like my body was asleep for months and it is just starting to wake up," he said. "Everything was different."

Greeson's newest physician, Dr. Paul Harris of Abilene, listened to his plight and set Greeson straight about OxyContin. "He said Oxy is what they should give if you have inoperable cancer," Greeson recalled. "He was appalled I was given the drug."

Greeson remains bitter about the Oxy experience. "I was angry that I was given stuff that would make me almost die," he said. "I was never told about the symptoms. I was angry I was never told that I'd need help coming off it." In the end, Greeson's strong will and his faith saved him.

"There was a lady custodian at the hospital and she was really nice to me," he recalled. "She came in and wanted to pray over me. She brought in a Rosary and she must have prayed over me for half an hour. "I stayed up all-night and prayed," he said. "That was the only relief I had. My faith in God pulled me through. Nothing on earth kept me alive."