It's easy for kids to get their hands on prescription drugs and abuse them, said Ben Chartier, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse senior.

He would know - his almost-fatal drug addiction started when he found Oxycontin painkillers in his mother's dresser drawer while in high school.

He'd gotten his first taste of prescription drugs after being prescribed Vicodin for a torn knee ligament in his junior year. 

"If you're laying there anyway, you might as well be messed up," he remembers thinking.

Chartier then discovered his mother had something stronger. What started at a pill a day grew to three.

The shy Chartier could break out of his bubble while high, he said.

"I was talking and making people laugh," he said. "Now I realize it was because I was acting stupid."

Still, no one suspected Chartier - a clean-cut star athlete - was using drugs, until his mother called for a prescription refill much too soon. He lied about the pills when confronted, he said, then found his own dealer and upped the amount he was taking.

When he could no longer afford those drugs, he started shooting heroin until he was caught after his freshman year at UW-L. His uncle noticed money missing, while his brother found a lock box with his needles.

"It was almost a feeling of relief that finally people found out and I was going to get freed from this addiction," he said.

He's been sober for two years after checking into a drug rehabilitation center, and will graduate from UW-L's sociology and criminal justice programs next December. He wants to become an alcohol and other drug abuse counselor, and soon will start an internship through Coulee Council on Addictions, likely talking to youth about drug abuse.

"I know what it takes to be sober," he said.

Vicky Gunderson of Onalaska said Chartier's story echoes that of her late son, Kirk, who also became addicted to prescription drugs.

In June 2005, her son called to tell her he'd stabbed his brother and father, severely injuring both.

He later admitted he'd been stealing his mother's medication. What started as one Oxycontin a day eventually reached up to 13, he wrote in his journals.

"I was unaware to the degree that he needed the drugs," Gunderson said.

He would end up hanging himself in the La Crosse County Jail seven months after the stabbing.

People need to be aware that drug abuse can happen to anyone, Gunderson said. The 2004 National Institute on Drug Abuse's Monitoring the Future survey found 9.3 percent of 12th-graders reported using Vicodin without a prescription in the past year, and 5 percent reported using Oxycontin.

"We never thought our kids were going to be subjected to all this stuff in life, so you hope their choices are healthy choices, legal choices," said Gunderson.