Today
Jennifer Cassidy still sees a healthy young man when she looks at old photos of her brother, Aaron. “He was that guy in high school that, you know, starting pitcher for the baseball team, starting football defensive end,” she says. “Very popular.” Later on, as a successful insurance salesman who loved to work out, he went to a doctor for help with old sports injuries. Aaron, then 33, was given a prescription for the painkiller Vicodin. Although he did not have a history of drug or alcohol abuse, Cassidy tells TODAY, he developed a powerful addiction to painkillers.
