Substance Abuse and Professional Athletes: An Epidemic in Sports

Our culture expects athletes to display mental toughness at all times, and we often view struggles with substance abuse in athletes as antithetical to that expectation. Even though science has made it clear that addiction is a chronic disease of the brain, many people still believe it is a symptom of personal failure or lack of character — especially in the sports world. Elite athletes competing at international and national levels are subject to standardized anti-doping guidelines under the auspices of WADA and related national organizations. WADA is the international independent agency that publishes the World Anti-Doping Code, which is the document harmonizing anti-doping policies in all sports and all countries.61 The Code was first adopted in 2003 and became effective in 2004. Drug abuse in the athlete population may involve doping in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.

• The University of Pittsburgh is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for Physicians and Physician Assistants.
• With hundreds of drugs appearing on the “prohibited list” of WADA, it becomes a daunting task to collect the biological specimens from athletes and analyze them for PEDs.
• A positive test result would consist of too dramatic a change from the established individual baseline.
• But fame, promiscuity, fiscal irresponsibility and a three-year prison term culminated in multiple drug addictions.

Side effects of substances used by athletes

Despite the advances made in modern science, the desire to win remains a powerful motivator for athletes, driven by financial incentives such as prizes and lucrative sponsorship deals or societal pressures such as national expectations for gold medal victories. This perpetuates a constant demand for performance-enhancing drugs that can enhance athletic performance, such as an anabolic steroid. The purchase, sale, and nonmedical consumption of all the aforementioned drugs are illegal, and these psychotropic drugs can be obtained only on the black market. Alcohol, for instance, can be legally purchased throughout much of the world, despite its high potential for abuse.

Module 6: Approaches to Addressing Substance Use Disorder with Patients Identified by the PDMP

He battled marijuana addiction as well as addictions to crack cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy his first three seasons and was released by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1990. After multiple stints at rehab facilities, Carter got his life and career back on track. However, some athletes conquered their addictions and went on to have successful careers or lead prosperous lives.

Athletes Suffering in Silence

Proper treatment is the only way to divert an athlete from a path of addiction that will ruin their career and their life. Athletes at all levels and of all ages are susceptible to injury, and the treatment method for those injuries can sharply increase the potential for addiction to prescription painkillers. Opioid drugs like OxyContin® and Vicodin® are powerful medications prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain, such as the kind experienced after a sports injury or surgery to repair said injury. Individuals who abuse anabolic steroids at some point during their life are more likely to turn to other drugs. One study looked at individuals admitted to an inpatient treatment facility for opioid addictions.

Thus, athletes who may be at-risk for developing a substance abuse problem may often find it relatively easy to be in social settings where alcohol and drugs are readily available. To date, the literature is filled with a limited number of high-quality systematic reviews in the field of addiction related to athletes and these studies mainly examine a small number of studies [14,15,26,27,29]. There appears a need for more rigorous high-quality studies looking at direct head-to-head comparisons between athletes and non-athletes in the field of addiction with an emphasis on treatments. In the current cutthroat era of sports, where the second winner is viewed as the first loser, the spirit of “fighting well” is lost completely.

Modafinil was added to the list of prohibited substances on 3 August 2004, ten days before the start of the 2004 Summer Olympics. The father of anabolic steroids in the United States was John Ziegler (1917–1983), a physician for the U.S. weightlifting team drug abuse in sports in the mid-20th century. In 1954, on his tour to Vienna with his team for the world championship, Ziegler learned from his Russian colleague that the Soviet weightlifting team’s success was due to their use of testosterone as a performance-enhancing drug.

Drug use has claimed the lives of numerous prominent professional athletes. Former NFL quarterback Jim McMahon said he received hundreds of injections and pills from team medical professionals, including Percocet, Toradol and https://ecosoberhouse.com/ amphetamines, per The Washington Post. Derek Boogaard, an ice hockey player who died of an accidental overdose of oxycodone and alcohol, received more than 100 prescriptions for pills during his final three years of life.

Cycling has improved since 2004, while doping has decreased by almost 50% in the last decade.

• Other drugs that are frequently abused include cannabis (marijuana, hashish, etc., from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa), PCP, and such hallucinogens, or psychedelics, as LSD and mescaline.
• Johnson had won the 100m in a world record of 9.79 seconds but was stripped of his gold medal, external after the positive test and sent home in disgrace.
• Even the cannabinoids can be justified in those dealing with terminal, painful conditions.
• Finally, recent developments in international collaboration between governments and the sporting community are covered, and continued efforts to harmonize standards in anti-doping policies and practices are advocated.

With his knowledge and expertise, he provides personalized training, nutrition, and recovery guidance to help clients reach their fitness goals. Ultimately, 11 studies met the eligibility criteria for inclusion in this systematic review4,7,11,17,20,23,25-29 (Figure 1). Given the expected low quality of evidence, no meta-analysis was planned or performed. Basic demographic data are represented descriptively, and individual study results are described qualitatively and with descriptive statistics where appropriate. Means are presented ± SD for normally distributed data, and medians presented with interquartile range for nonnormally distributed data. By the 2000s, he became addicted to alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, Tadalafil and anti-anxiety medications.

• Fans idolize them, young athletes want to be them and corporate sponsors want to work with them.
• Twelve-step programs are likely the mode of alcohol and drug abuse intervention most familiar to the general public.
• You can’t force someone into rehab, but you can take these steps to help a person realize they need rehab.
• Drug use has claimed the lives of numerous prominent professional athletes.
• In many cases, this involves withdrawal management with the use of medication-assisted treatment.
• In addition, it is not practically possible to collect samples from all the athletes participating in sport events across the world.

Substance Use and Addiction in Athletes: The Case for Neuromodulation and Beyond