There have been recent raids on dealers of prescription narcotics stolen from pharmacies.

But the story-behind-the-story is the people who may be in your neighborhood or where you work who are getting high popping pain pills.

It’s drug abuse that may defy every stereotype you have about who’s addicted and who’s a dealer.

“It was about a money-making thing for the doctors and pharmacies, and it was an addiction for me,” Bill Wallace said.

Wallace, a former Houston bank executive, agreed to talk openly about his past addiction.

An addiction not to heroin or cocaine but to prescription painkillers.

“I’d hurt my back,” he said.

A back injury led to a visit to his doctor.

“He gave me Vicodin,” he said.

Vicodin turned out to be great for his back pain, but terrible for Wallace’s weakness for a good high: He was already a recovering alcoholic.

“When I doubled up the dose, I started getting a euphoric effect,” Wallace said.

A high that’s a side effect of Vicodin also known by its generic name hydrocodone.

“It got really, really bad,” he said. “In the end, I was up to about 60 hydrocodone pills a day.

“I got them various places,” Wallace said. “Primarily I got them online.”

Wallace said he spent $40,000 in a one year buying drugs online.

Answer a few questions about your pain and presto, an online doctor prescribes the drugs.

Other sources can include cash-only pain clinics and street dealers selling painkillers stolen from pharmacies.

Add it all up and experts now say prescription painkillers are rivaled only by marijuana as the drug of choice.

“People tend to focus on heroin,” Dr. Richard Dart said.

AP

The maker of painkiller OxyContin is now funding the database.

Dr. Richard Dart in Denver is a leading expert on the abuse of pain drugs called opioids — the same family of drugs that includes heroin.

“But in reality, I think it’s clear the prescription opioids are a much bigger problem,” he said.

A huge problem, but the federal government is putting pressure on the drug companies to figure ways to reduce the abuse.

And one way can be found here: The local office of the Texas Poison Control Network.

Turns out, when abusers, especially teenagers, get a hold of prescription pills, they often get confused about what they have.

So they call the 1-800-hotline and describe the pill.

The calls can be anonymous, but the staff does ask: “What’s your ZIP code out there?”

Starting later this year, the center will begin sending the pill and ZIP code info to a national database in Denver.

“The earliest way really to find a trend,” Dr. Dart said.

The database is designed to be an early warning.

It came about after massive abuse of the painkiller OxyContin whose manufacturer is now funding the database.

“It all came to a crashing end,” Wallace said.

But for Wallace, the only thing that interfered with his abuse was his realization he might die from it.

So he got into rehab, and while he lost his marriage and his house in the suburbs, he is rebuilding his life and facing life’s pain without all the pills.

And here’s an irony: The government said it’s finding that in areas of the country where prescription painkiller abuse was reduced, the use of heroin went up.