Drug Abuse in Sports
The nature of sports is the passion and desire to win, the habit of competition is second nature to us humans and many athletes would do anything to come out on top of their opponents. However, the decision is up to us to choose whether we want to make the right decision or wrong. Majority of athletes would take the time and improve by working hard this being mentally and physically, however, there are some athletes who would rather take the easy way out and use drugs to improve their skills. This is where drug abuse takes place, athletes take these drugs so they can have the edge on their opponents so they have a better chance to win. Therefore, sports authorities should come up with a better method for permanently getting …show more content…
Majority of young athletes tend to feel like it's fine to fall in the footsteps of their role model and take performance enhancing drugs since they see that the people they look up to get away with it time after time. Even knowing about the effects of the drugs they see how other athletes benefit of the drugs and feel like it would be their best option to abuse the drugs so they can perform on a better level, Sadly the dark side of the effects isn’t told. “There has been a number of high school athletes suicides in the past decade associated with steroid.” (Reardon 1) Young athletes have the tendency to have a worse reaction to performance enhancing, young athletes that are going off and on the drugs messes with their hormone levels, leading to mood swings and depression. However, if performance enhancing drugs do not come to an end it would lead to other athletes starting to use the drugs just so they can keep par with other competitors who are abusing banned drugs. According to Sports Illustrated, “ Half of all recently surveyed Olympic athletes admitted that they would be willing to take a drug, even if it would kill them eventually, as long as it would let them win every event they entered five years in a row”(1) This type of “win at any cost” mentality is making sports exciting, no athlete is wanting to lose at something they put their whole life into but taking steroids or any …show more content…
For example “Alzado played defensive end in the NFL for three teams, culminating in a championship with the Raiders in 1984. One of the first pro athletes to admitting using steroids, Alzado died at the age of 43 from a brain tumor was convinced stemmed from his steroid use” (Alzado 1) In his book, Alzado confesses on how he took steroids, and that even after retirement, he was addicted to it and couldn’t stop taking the drugs, therefore he regrets taking it when he finds out the main reason behind his brain tumor was due to the use of the performance enhancing drugs. Athletes should consider the risk of taking performance enhancing drugs and how effective it could be in their future. Many athletes do not realize how drugs can lead to major health risk, some short term side effects for performance enhancing drugs is acne, balding, mood swings and anger problems. Some athletes would say that's not as severe, but the major effects come later on in life. For example, some long term risk are heart and liver damage, also an increased risk of blood clots. “A 2014 study looked into a connection between anabolic steroids and cardiovascular function. The results suggest that heavy steroid users are more likely to have an irregular heart function and a higher mortality rate compared to natural lifters.” (Gheshlaghi 1) An example of this is the death of 46 year old bodybuilder Piana who openly
The nature of sports is the passion and desire to win, the habit of competition is second nature to us humans and many athletes would do anything to come out on top of their opponents. However, the decision is up to us to choose whether we want to make the right decision or wrong. Majority of athletes would take the time and improve by working hard this being mentally and physically, however, there are some athletes who would rather take the easy way out and use drugs to improve their skills. This is where drug abuse takes place, athletes take these drugs so they can have the edge on their opponents so they have a better chance to win. Therefore, sports authorities should come up with a better method for permanently getting …show more content…
Majority of young athletes tend to feel like it's fine to fall in the footsteps of their role model and take performance enhancing drugs since they see that the people they look up to get away with it time after time. Even knowing about the effects of the drugs they see how other athletes benefit of the drugs and feel like it would be their best option to abuse the drugs so they can perform on a better level, Sadly the dark side of the effects isn’t told. “There has been a number of high school athletes suicides in the past decade associated with steroid.” (Reardon 1) Young athletes have the tendency to have a worse reaction to performance enhancing, young athletes that are going off and on the drugs messes with their hormone levels, leading to mood swings and depression. However, if performance enhancing drugs do not come to an end it would lead to other athletes starting to use the drugs just so they can keep par with other competitors who are abusing banned drugs. According to Sports Illustrated, “ Half of all recently surveyed Olympic athletes admitted that they would be willing to take a drug, even if it would kill them eventually, as long as it would let them win every event they entered five years in a row”(1) This type of “win at any cost” mentality is making sports exciting, no athlete is wanting to lose at something they put their whole life into but taking steroids or any …show more content…
For example “Alzado played defensive end in the NFL for three teams, culminating in a championship with the Raiders in 1984. One of the first pro athletes to admitting using steroids, Alzado died at the age of 43 from a brain tumor was convinced stemmed from his steroid use” (Alzado 1) In his book, Alzado confesses on how he took steroids, and that even after retirement, he was addicted to it and couldn’t stop taking the drugs, therefore he regrets taking it when he finds out the main reason behind his brain tumor was due to the use of the performance enhancing drugs. Athletes should consider the risk of taking performance enhancing drugs and how effective it could be in their future. Many athletes do not realize how drugs can lead to major health risk, some short term side effects for performance enhancing drugs is acne, balding, mood swings and anger problems. Some athletes would say that's not as severe, but the major effects come later on in life. For example, some long term risk are heart and liver damage, also an increased risk of blood clots. “A 2014 study looked into a connection between anabolic steroids and cardiovascular function. The results suggest that heavy steroid users are more likely to have an irregular heart function and a higher mortality rate compared to natural lifters.” (Gheshlaghi 1) An example of this is the death of 46 year old bodybuilder Piana who openly