Dr. Johnny C. Benjamin: Steroids are Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Professional Sports
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
The overuse and abuse of narcotic pain medication in professional sports, especially contact sports, is enormous. The use of performance enhancing drugs is minuscule and almost meaningless in comparison.
It is a well-known mantra in the NFL that a player can’t make the team from the training room (nursing an injury instead of producing on the field). Players quickly learn that a cortisone shot will make it feel better in a few days. A percocet or vicodin will make if feel better right now. It is also commonly said that the letters NFL stands for ‘not-for-long’ if a player cannot consistently suit up and produce on the field for whatever reason.
After an average 3-year NFL career, daily pain medication is a way of life for many, if not most players. Players with average length careers (about 3 years) are often the marginal players whom are routinely relegated to the most dangerous duties, special teams. Veteran players with significantly longer tours of duty amass injuries due to length of service on the field of play.
Their career will one day end but the pain commonly does not. Year after year of daily physical abuse leads to substance overuse which in turn can often lead to abuse and dependence. The narcotic habit that developed during a player’s active career often continues far into retirement.
via Dr. Johnny C. Benjamin: Steroids are Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Professional Sports.
But at least they’re not smoking weed, right? A player like Brett Favre opens up and admits his addiction to powerful narcotic painkillers and the league and the press welcome him with open arms and praise him for his “courageous battle”. A player like Ricky Williams opens up and admits his medical use of marijuana for pain, inflammation, nausea, and social anxiety and the league boots him and the press taunts him as a “pothead”.
There is a reason the average lifespan of an NFL player is 55 years. A lot of it has to do with the physical pounding they take week in week out, and especially for the lineman, the extra weight they carry. But I believe a large reason for the shortened lifespan is the toxic toll all the painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers dished out by team doctors take on these men’s organs.
Topics: football, NFL, painkillers, Sports, steroids
