Via NJ.com:
Frank Mattiace was still a college football player when he felt the pain shooting up and down his back. Doctors told him it was the result of a narrowing of the spinal column caused by the blunt-force collisions of the game. By the time he was 24 and trying to catch on with the Detroit Lions as a defensive tackle, he was living with chronic back spasms and the after-effects of knee surgery. His knee constantly swelled with fluid and required repeated draining to at least temporarily ease the pain.
It was 1985, and to cope he popped Darvocet and Percocet, painkillers that were his practically...
