Blair Hubbard’s heroin addiction began with the popping of a few pain pills she was prescribed after wisdom teeth surgery.

“I accidentally took more than the recommended prescribed dose at one point and realized that I really liked the way it felt,” said Hubbard, 34, who lives in Denver.

Hubbard got hooked on opioid painkillers and began buying them from street dealers. But those can be expensive, and heroin provides more bang for the buck. So she started to use the drug intravenously.

Hubbard has now been sober for four years.

And to show just how far addicts can go when they get clean, Hubbard was flanked by Gov. John Hickenlooper and an Obama Administration official as she shared her story at a Thursday press event that highlighted Colorado’s efforts to curb prescription drug abuse.

“I hope that I can use my story and that I can talk more about what happened to me in order to educate the public and educate health care officials and try to help other addicts so there aren’t more stories like mine.”

Hickenlooper was joined by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell at Denver Health’s administrative offices to discuss polices that Colorado has implemented in an effort to stem prescription drug abuse — the fastest growing drug problem in the state and across the nation.

“The number of deaths that come from overdoses is greater than the number of deaths that result from car accidents,” Burwell said.

Prescription drug overdoses kill hundreds of Coloradans each year. And that rate has quadrupled in the last decade, according to the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.

“The intensity and the consequences are growing rapidly,” Hickenlooper said.

But Hickenlooper said Colorado has made strides in dealing with this issue. The governor said the state has seen up to an18-percent reduction in prescription drug abuse cases in recent years and that Colorado no longer ranks among the worst in the nation on this issue.

That success is tied to the recent Colorado Plan to Reduce Rx Abuse initiative, which aims to prevent 92,000 Coloradans from abusing opioid painkillers by 2016.

The program includes new focuses on increasing public awareness of the problem and enhancing the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which provides pharmacists with a database that provides easy access to a patient’s controlled substance prescription history.

The state has also encouraged increased awareness via the website TakeMedsSeriously.org.

Hickenlooper said much of the state’s efforts are aimed at making sure drug problems don’t start inside a doctor’s office. He shared a story about receiving a 30-day oxycodone prescription for a dental implant procedure.

“And they say, ‘If you’re taking this after four days, call me,’” Hickenlooper said. “Well, let’s give me the prescription for four days. So that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been working on that.”

Burwell had good things to say about Colorado’s efforts at dealing with this issue after meeting with the governor and health officials at a roundtable discussion prior to the press conference.

But states could use more help from the federal government, Burwell said. And that’s what she hopes will happen as part of a $99 million funding request to Congress that would assist states with the problem.

That money would help fund three areas where Burwell is focusing her efforts: Reductions in opioid-based prescriptions; increased medicated-assisted treatment options; and the increased availability of naloxone, a drug that prevents death in cases of overdose.

Burwell said these policies will help address an addiction problem that is growing at a very high rate — and causing wreckage on the part of addicts along the way.

“This is an issue that is a difficult one for our nation,” Burwell said. “I think people don’t realize the cost in terms of lives, the cost in terms of health, the cost in terms of economics.”

Medical treatment options, such as the use of methadone, which relieves withdrawal symptoms of opioid use, helped Hubbard stop using heroin.

“I think what would have made a difference early in my addiction is if I had known more about medically-assisted treatment programs,” she said.

Hubbard, who is now working on a master’s degree in counseling, has a message for the still-suffering addict.

“I want them to know, number one, it is doable,” she said. “You can get over addiction. But more than that, there are people, whether they have encountered them yet, there are resources and people who genuinely care.”

— Twitter: @VicVela1