Sacks said Oxy put him in a total fog. "I remember getting up every morning saying, 'dear God get me off this stuff.' It takes control of your life. It controls you, you do not control it." The drug killed his sex drive and led to thoughts of suicide. "When the drug dissipates, you experience pain and you lose the ability to have reasonable cognizance," he said. "It messed up my life real good." "With OxyContin, I could not even mow the law without medication. That is a horrible way to live. Ask any person who has been through this addiction. They will tell you that asking someone to stop taking them is like asking a normal person not to breathe." Given the chance, Sacks would say this to the Oxy makers. "I'd tell them you are not providing the doctors or the patients with sufficient information about his medication," he said.

John Sacks went to war and won a Purple Heart. But OxyContin caused him more worry than the North Vietnamese.

Problems began when he sought doctor's help for neck pain

Diagnosed with a neck ailment in 1993, Sacks followed his doctor's advice and received regular Cortisone injections for the pain. Doctors tampered with a nerve near his the spinal cord to neutralize his pain. The procedure only caused more hurt.

He got a variety of medications, including Vicodin and Hydrocodone. Then a 1995 traffic accident heightened his suffering. A pain specialist recommended a new drug called OxyContin.

"That was when OxyContin was first introduced on the market," he recalled "It was recommended for me. They said it would be more effective than anything else."

Doctors did not recognize warning signs of addiction

They started him out at 10mg tabs twice a day. Before long the dosage got bumped up to 40mg pills three times a day. "It got ridiculous," he said of the Oxy dosages. "My doctor said I'd never get off the medication. I knew I was becoming addicted, but no one would listen to me."

He listened to several physicians, including a pain specialist and his then wife, a nurse. All backed OxyContin. "After hearing this from several doctors, you begin to feel like maybe they are right and you are wrong, so I learn to live with this," he said. "I found myself more and more addictive and not able to function if the meds were out."

Sacks continued to work as an engineer with a top-security clearance throughout most of his OxyContin addiction. He has worked at the Hanford Nuclear site in Washington, designing radioactive clean up equipment under the direction of the Department of Energy. More recently, he has worked project for the Department of Homeland Security, working to detect radioactive materials entering through America's borders.

As his body became tolerant, doctors steadily increased dosage

As time passed in the late 1990s, Sacks lost his grip on Oxy. As with other OxyContin users, Sacks built up a tolerance to the normal levels. The doctors increased his prescription, recommending he take 40mgs twice a day.

Sacks said Oxy put him in a total fog. "I remember getting up every morning saying, 'dear God get me off this stuff.' It takes control of your life. It controls you, you do not control it."

Distressing personality changes

The drug killed his sex drive and led to thoughts of suicide. "When the drug dissipates, you experience pain and you lose the ability to have reasonable cognizance," he said. "It messed up my life real good."

"I finally came to realize that I was really addicted and that OxyContin no longer alleviated my pain," he said. "When the meds get reduced you feel a sense of pain that is greater than your real pathology. When I got off the medication, I had a lot of chronic pain."

He grew more and more addicted. That caused him to do a foolish thing, in July of 2000. "I was I was more and more dependent on the stuff," he began. "My doctor used to leave me prescriptions when she went on vacation. But this month she forgot. I did something really stupid; it's something that people who are addicted often do. I made a prescription up on the computer."

Family life shattered, career damaged

A pharmacist spotted the forgery right away. Word got back to the Department of Energy and Sacks lost his security clearance. He was convicted of a misdemeanor, but retained his Department of Energy security level in January of 2002 after he went through detox and proved drug-free.

But by then, other aspects of his life had fallen apart. His wife of 11 years divorced him in 2001. She did not want to deal with his addiction. "It was because of the drugs," he said. "My wife flat out told me she did not intend to marry a drug addict."

He sought professional help soon after, and checked himself into a facility in Pasco, Wash. He underwent five days of intense detox. He spent most of that time unconscious from the medications used to clean out his body. "The others in detox were on heroin and cocaine and all these illegal drugs," he said. "Some of them were off detox in a few days. But I had to stay longer, because the OxyContin was stronger than heroin." He spent nearly two weeks inside.

Scars remain from OxyContin experience

Today, Sacks is remarried and recovering. In many ways the Oxy experience caused more scars than his days in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, where Sacks served as a tank gunner and won a Purple Heart.

He was nearly blown to bits when an enemy RPG round exploded as he guarded a highway Saigon in 1966. He caught shrapnel in his leg and nearly lost the limb. "This round came in and got five of us as we stood behind two tanks. No one got killed."

Gen. William Westmoreland, head of America's war in Vietnam, awarded Sacks his Purple Heart. "He walked through the hospital and said he wanted to get us our Purple Hearts right away," Sacks recalled. "I was honored and flattered by the fact the chief general was right here in our hospital ward shaking our hands." Sacks was discharged in 1967.

"In Vietnam I had some control," he said. "It was horrible, but at least I could dictate what I was doing. But when you are on narcotics like OxyContin, they dictate what you will do.

"With OxyContin, I could not even mow the law without medication. That is a horrible way to live. Ask any person who has been through this addiction. They will tell you that asking someone to stop taking them is like asking a normal person not to breathe."

Given the chance, Sacks would say this to the Oxy makers. "I'd tell them you are not providing the doctors or the patients with sufficient information about his medication," he said.