More and more teenagers are turning to their parents' medicine cabinet to get high. Their prescription drug of choice: a pain reliever called oxycontin. It's a disturbing trend of teenage boys getting hooked on a drug as powerful as morphine.

Playing a game of pool in a sober living house on Mount Soledad is helping 20-year-old Joe stay clean. Joe's a recovering drug addict, sober for just two months.

"I started doing drugs when I was 14 - smoking weed, doing coke right off the bat," Joe said.

By the time Joe was 16, he had found his drug of choice - the potent pain killer oxycontin. He took it in pill form and tried smoking it, but mostly he snorted it.

"I was stealing money, selling drugs, robbing houses… anything I could do to get money for the drugs," he said.

Joe fits the demographic of an increasing number of oxycontin addicts: young white males. Alvarado Parkway Institute psychologist Sean O'Hara says he sees six to seven teenagers a week who abuse oxycontin.

"Kids are getting it by forging their own prescriptions. Kids are getting it by buying it on the internet. Kids are getting it by going down to Mexico," he said.

Because oxycontin is expensive on the black market, one of the warning signs for parents is kids stealing money and running up debt.

"A number of clients we've seen here come in with $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 in credit card debt, which is internet drug buying," O'Hara said.

For parents, O'Hara recommends buying an over-the-counter drug test that can detect opiate drugs like oxycontin.

Joe is one of the lucky ones.

"I went to my parents and said 'I need help. I need to go into treatment,'" he said.

Joe found an upscale sober living house that caters to college students and young professionals. It even has a swimming pool. Pacifica Retreat was founded a year ago by - you guessed it - two young white males.

"There is a solution. There are thousands of people recovering from addiction. It's really comforting to know you don't have to do it alone," co-owner Barrett Hammond said.

The program is working for Joe, and now he's on the road to recovery.

"Being around other sober people just makes it so much easier to be sober," he said.

Kicking the oxycontin habit typically involves both inpatient and outpatient treatment that can last up to 12 months.