After several high profile cases of drug abuse, especially with steroids, that have come to light amongst professional sports players, one wonders if the personalities involved in bodybuilding and other highly competitive sports have poor judgment of right and wrong and leads to addiction to performance-enhancing-drugs with concommitant side-effects.
PEDs have a notorious history in professional cycling but that sport is not the origin of the athlete’s desire to gain an edge by breaking the rules of natural sportsmanship.
A gullible up-and-coming athlete in high school looks to his coach for mentoring and role-modeling. But high school can be the beginning of the slow downhill slide to drug abuse and desperate acts to gain an extra advantage.
We have also seen the effects of drug use on the personalities and behavior of many famous sports people, whom we admire for their peak performances.
As society idolizes extreme athletic performance, more pressure is felt by vulnerable young athletes, and deceitful aging sportsmen and women. The drug culture becomes embedded with a pill for every ill solution.
We can all help reject the notion that chemicals enhance living at any cost and recognize that some misguided behavior requires services of another profession - the drug abuse rehab clinic.
