Sports and Drugs

It isn’t uncommon to read about professional athletes being caught using illicit drugs. There was an article recently on the Sports Channel about a baseball player from the Texas Rangers who admitted to using cocaine the previous season and he said that he has also used methamphetamines and marijuana during his professional career.

This player was not suspended but was given some actions to make amends and to get off of the drugs and continue to stay clean. He followed these orders and then stated that he knows many other professional baseball players who do drugs in a similar manner. He said it is way too common to have colleagues that use meth.

Spending my entire adult professional life fighting drug abuse and helping those addicted to recover gives me a unique perspective on this revelation. Our sports celebrities are viewed by our children, youth and by ourselves as role models. One must wonder what effect it has on youth who see someone getting caught in a drug test, admit to other drug usage and then still maintain a high powered job within the sports industry.

The appropriate action for this professional might not be to rob him of his career, but there needs to be a more intense reaction to his telling about his drug use then to just “slap his hands” and go on with business as usual. It should have been clear that he suffered the consequences of his actions and made the proper amends.

Some youth can, like this athlete did, do drugs a few times and then never do them again. However, others get hooked almost the first time they try a drug. Unfortunately, most typically,  those who get hooked are those who already have problems that seem to disappear when they take the drugs. Drugs are always taken to get rid of some unwanted pain or emotion.

We need to be careful about the messages that our role models send to the public and we have to be prepared to treat anyone needing treatment as early as we find out about the problem.

It has been said many times that addiction only has 3 endings: sobriety, prison or death. The cost in emotions for the addict and their family and friends and cost in money for someone who gets addicted is extreme.

It is my opinion that sports celebrities must stay clean of drugs as it can cost many lives for such celebrities to be found to be doing drugs. The youth obviously see them as successful and someone that they want to emulate. We need to ensure that the use of drugs by these role models is never presented as something that they just tried and then chose not to continue. Most addicts don’t have the ability to make that choice.