Shekhar didn’t really suffer from muscle pain. But he was at the chemist’s every day, buying a strip of Spasmoproxyvon — a medicine that doctors would sparingly prescribe for muscular aches.

He is now at a rehabilitation centre in Mumbai. His left eye twitches involuntarily, as Shekhar — an electrician — looks stony faced. It is for the first time in three years that he has been forced to go without his daily fix of tablets.

Like Michael Jackson — who died last week in a suspected case of abuse of medicines — Shekhar didn’t have to look far for his daily fix. He didn’t have to hobnob with peddlers for hard drugs in shady street corners. He just bought them over the counter at a pharmacist’s.

Anybody — from a school student to a housewife — can get a high on a host of medicines that are easily available and perfectly legal. Though you need a prescription to buy most of these medicinal drugs — those listed in Schedule H of the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules, 1945, cannot be sold without a prescription — unscrupulous chemists are willing to sell them to you without the doctor’s orders.

For many abusers, it all begins with just a few tablets, or an injection or two. Sunil Trivedi, currently in rehab in Mumbai, used to take two or three tablets of Spasmoproxyvon a day. Gradually, a feeling of calm replaced initial side effects such as nausea. “I became oblivious to the constant bickering at home,” says Trivedi, 24, who until recently worked in the office of his uncle, a Congress legislator, in Raipur. “I felt very peaceful and enjoyed driving under the influence of the drug,” he says.

But the craving led to more pills and sleeplessness — which he tried to cure by overdosing on Alprax, a tranquiliser. Soon, Trivedi couldn’t do without his daily dose of medicines.

Medicine abuse — of pills and injectables — is on the rise. Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla, a psychiatrist in Mumbai who works with addicts, says prescription medication abuse has increased “drastically” over the years. The medicines are easily available, don’t cost too much, and there are chemists who are willing to sell them without prescriptions.

Some chemists, of course, make a profit by selling them at a premium — two to ten times more than the actual price, he says.

Besides the abuse of synthetic opiates — painkillers, tranquilisers and anti-depressants — the potentially addictive codeine phosphate in cough syrups are hot favourites. Corex, for instance, is a popular cough syrup that addicts love for the high it gives them.

Riyaz Sheikh (name changed), a chemist in Bandra (West), says he recognises an addict when he sees an old prescription. “Doctors usually taper off the medication after a few weeks or a month, but these people get so addicted to the medication that they continue to take it long after the doctor has tried to wean them off the drugs,” says Sheikh.

Some addicts, says Mumbai-based psychiatrist Anjali Chabbria, are patients of hypertension and anxiety. Some, adds Dr Sujata Nair, who is attached to a Mumbai de-addiction centre called Kripa, abuse heart and hypertension medication.

Even the over-the-counter diarrhoea medication Lomotil is used by addicts to calm their nerves. Sheikh speaks of a client who confessed to using the medicine to get sleep during the day, as he worked mainly night shifts.

Most of the drugs relax the muscles which sedate a person. More than anything else, it’s this feeling of “well being” that addicts seek.

Another reason people prefer prescription medicine abuse, doctors say, is because there are not as many outward manifestations as in alcohol or narcotic drug abuse.

As a teenager, Pranaadhika Sinha, founder director of Elaan, a Calcutta-based support group for incest survivors, got addicted to the sedative Ativan, a benzodiazepine prescribed for anxiety, insomnia, seizures, muscle spasms or for withdrawal symptoms of drugs and alcohol use. Sinha faced intense insomnia — she was unable to sleep for a week at a stretch — after her parents separated. She took to the drug, which had earlier helped her mother. “Before taking the drug my mother used to shout at me. But after taking it, she stopped.”

The battle over insomnia was won, but Sinha got hooked on the drug, which she regularly stole from her mother’s medicine chest. “I simply couldn’t do without it,” she says.

One day after a fight with her mother, Sinha took an overdose of Ativan and ended up unconscious for three days — putting an end to the addiction.

Sinha may have been freed from a lifetime of addiction, but many others have been gently lulled into it. At least two of her mother’s friends in Calcutta, she says, have been self medicating — taking anti-depressants such as Paxil — to fight menopausal blues.

There are people who pop pills by the dozen or inject themselves to get their high, but in most cases a patient gets hooked to medicines through sheer accident or lack of awareness. Sunil John, 33, an executive at a media house in Mumbai, is a classic case of an accidental addict. He used to suffer from frequent headaches, and started taking the analgesic Saridon for a cure. Then one day he realised that he couldn’t do without the medicine — an addiction that has lasted five years. “Often I take the pill as a preventive measure, fearing I will have to take twice the number of pills if the headache worsens,” says John.

Many of the addicts are doctors — tempted by the easy availability of the pills and stressed by the pressures of work. One of Matcheswalla’s patients — currently in rehab for prescription medicine abuse — is a doctor, whose husband is a doctor as well. “I have treated not less than 50 doctors addicted to prescription medicine over the last 15 years,” says Dr Matcheswalla. Another patient is a young animal lover who got addicted to an anaesthetic used to sedate the animals she worked with.

People have different reasons for getting addicted to medicines. Sonia, 25, a Pune resident, says it was her “addictive personality” and “curiosity” that led to her getting hooked on prescription medication when she was 15. She says she continued with the drugs because they “stabilised” her moods. Mamta, a 29-year-old information technology professional in Mumbai, however, has no idea why she needed an addiction. But she knew she couldn’t do without the sleep-inducing family of nitrazepams.

“Most doctors would conclude that addiction is the result of a messed up family background. But I came from a very loving and protective family where there was no violence or abuse,” says Mamta. “My brother who grew up in the same home has never even touched alcohol or drugs,” she adds.

Mamta’s epiphany came by way of the Narcotics Anonymous (NA) (http://www.nabombay.org/) where she learnt that her’s was an illness that plagued not just her body but also her mind. NA, like the Alcoholics Anonymous which helps alcoholics go off liquor, conducts a 12-step programme for recovering drug addicts, who meet regularly in every city to help each other stay clean. The steps include admitting the addiction, prayer and meditation.

It is almost six years since Sonia and Mamta have been off drugs — after several failed attempts. “My family is proud of me now,” says Mamta.

But a “clean” life does not necessarily translate as easy. There are unresolved issues that come with an “addictive” personality. “There are days when I get overwhelmed with life and feel like going back to my relationship with drugs,” says Mamta.

That’s when she stops and is reminded of all the steps that constituted her de-addiction programme. And she takes one day at a time.