At every level, substance use in sports impacts both athletic performance and the health, well-being, and longevity of athletes. Despite this, millions of athletes turn to drug and alcohol use to deal with challenges both on and off the field.
There are countless reasons why athletes turn to substance use, but some are more prominent than others. Regardless of the reason, athletes who develop an addiction will often need professional mental health treatment services in order to achieve recovery.
Reasons Athletes Turn to Substance Use
Everyone has their unique reasons for using drugs or alcohol, but there are a few common trends. For athletes, these reasons are distilled even further. Take a closer look at why many athletes turn to substance use during or after their sports career.
Performance Enhancement
The use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is exceptionally high among athletes, serving as a common cause of addiction in sports. According to one review, the rate of PED use among elite athletes is between 14% and 39%. This could include using drugs such as anabolic steroids, growth hormones, diuretics, beta-blockers, or central nervous system stimulants.
It’s easy to see why so many athletes turn to these drugs, which promise better performance, greater strength, more endurance, and faster recovery times. Yet these drugs can often have debilitating physical and mental health consequences, including the development of a substance use disorder and the risk of severe medical health events.
Some of the harmful negative effects of PEDs include:
- High blood pressure
- Increased risk of heart disease
- Enlarged organs
- Severe anxiety
- Depression
- Liver damage
- Higher risk of cancer
- Blood clots
- Increased risk of stroke
It’s true that certain PEDs can provide a boost to some aspects of athletic performance in the short term. Yet they create lasting problems in the long term, even if you choose to stop using PEDs in the future. Further, they put you at risk of being disqualified from sporting events, getting in trouble with the law, or finding yourself in the midst of an expensive and debilitating substance use disorder.
If you want to continue your athletic career, the safest way to do so is to remain or become a drug-free athlete, which can preserve your health and athletic ability for years to come.
Relaxation
Competing in sports can be incredibly taxing. Training several times a week can leave your body feeling fatigued or worn down, and the mental sharpness needed for practice often leads to people feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
As a result, many athletes will turn to drugs or alcohol as a form of relaxation. This would typically include using drugs such as:
- Alcohol
- Opioids
- Benzodiazepines
- Muscle relaxants
These drugs are all central nervous system depressants, meaning they slow down your body’s automatic, life-preserving functions. This often produces a sense of calm and relaxation and may even reduce some of the pain and aches you experience from practice.
However, these effects are typically short-lived and artificial. As athletes continue using these drugs for relaxation, they often find that they need more of the drug in order to produce the desired effect and that when they don’t take the drug, they feel even more discomfort, stress, or anxiety.
Both of these are signs of developing drug tolerance and drug withdrawal. While they may have worked at first, these drugs eventually produce the opposite effect of what people had hoped, leaving them to feel more fatigued, stressed, and physically uncomfortable despite taking large doses of their substance of choice.
When athletes use these types of substances for relief from muscle soreness or pain, they may also find that they have a harder time recovering. Opioid painkillers, for instance, often dull the signals your body sends to go easy on recovering muscles, leading to overuse and exertion that can impede the recovery process.
Socialization
One of the most common reasons for substance use in all populations is to facilitate socialization. Athletes may drink or use drugs with their teammates, at social gatherings, at fundraising events, or any other type of social situation to help ease any sense of social anxiety or to simply have a good time.
This is particularly true for college athletes, who engage in heavy drinking and binge drinking at highly elevated rates. Such drinking is often in the context of post-game parties or celebrations, where athletes are surrounded by others using drugs or alcohol extensively.
Peer pressure plays a role here as well. If your teammates are using drugs or alcohol, you may feel pressured to use them also so that you can fit in with the group. Team cohesion is a critical component of your team’s success, but using drugs or alcohol to facilitate this will often cancel out any benefit you receive from feeling closer to your teammates.
Lifestyle Management
Perhaps the most dangerous reason for addiction in sports is athletes using drugs or alcohol to cope with the lifestyle the career often involves.
Athletes are frequently treated like machines: trained, tested, and expected to perform at a moment’s notice. Yet many athletes can face internal and external mental health challenges, such as experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, or countless other disruptive mental health symptoms.
If athletes can’t find the support to deal with these symptoms in a healthy way, they may turn to drugs or alcohol as a solution for these mental health challenges. Yet drinking or using drugs in order to cope with life’s stressors can be one of the fastest pathways to a substance use disorder.
Drugs or alcohol often work for relieving mental health symptoms — but only for a short while. In time, they will ultimately make the root cause of your mental health challenges worse, and when that time comes, you may also be dealing with a full-blown substance use disorder as well.
These two sets of symptoms can dovetail into a destructive downward spiral, where a person’s mental health symptoms get worse and require more drugs or alcohol to treat. The cycle can repeat itself indefinitely until it’s broken.
Breaking the Pattern of Addiction in Sports
As troubling as addiction in sports can be, there are several effective options to help people struggling with addiction break free from their challenges. It’s critically important that athletes struggling with substance use disorders get the treatment they need as soon as possible, as an addiction can not only interfere with their performance but interfere with every aspect of their lives as well.
Withdrawal and Detox Management
People who experience physical withdrawal symptoms when they stop using their substance of choice should almost always begin the treatment process at a specialized medical detox facility. Drug or alcohol withdrawal can be incredibly uncomfortable, prevent you from sticking to your plan for recovery, and in some cases, even lead to life-threatening symptoms if left untreated.
For example, drugs like alcohol and benzodiazepines can lead to withdrawal symptoms that include:
- Shakes
- Profuse sweating
- Dehydration
- Hallucinations
- Delusions
- Severe anxiety
- Seizures
These symptoms — and the risk of fatal consequences — can be vastly reduced by seeking medical treatment at a specialized withdrawal and detox management facility. There are several medications that can directly lessen withdrawal symptoms, help you feel more comfortable, and allow you to withdraw safely.
A medical detox is staffed 24/7 by professionals who are standing by to support you with any symptoms you experience, monitor your treatment progress, and provide emergency medical intervention if required.
As critical as detox management is for the recovery process, it should always be followed by evidence-based addiction treatment services to support people in building long, healthy lives in recovery.
Residential Treatment
For athletes with severe substance use disorders, residential treatment is typically the best option. Residential treatment provides clients with 24/7 support from addiction and mental health professionals, and clients live on-site during the entire treatment process.
Almost every day during residential treatment, clients participate in several hours of targeted addiction and mental health treatment interventions. This could include receiving specialized therapies such as:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Group therapy
- Medication-assisted treatment
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
- Mindfulness training
- Yoga, meditation, and breathwork
These treatment options aren’t just designed to help you break free from an addiction but also to help you heal in every aspect of your life. That includes healing from underlying mental health challenges such as depression or anxiety and benefiting from a team of medical experts available to assist with any ongoing medical challenges.
At APN Lodge, clients can enter our specialized residential treatment program designed specifically for athletes. This athletes-only track was designed by professional athletes and connects our clients with athletics-focused therapists and medical experts. It also provides targeted services for issues that affect athletes disproportionately, such as concussions or traumatic brain injuries.
Curious about our approach to treatment for athletes? You can check out our new podcast, Tackling Stigma, to hear from former professional athletes and behavioral health experts on our team.
Outpatient Treatment
Outpatient treatment provides several of the same services as residential programs but doesn’t require clients to live on-site during the treatment process. Instead, clients attend their treatment program several times per week, either in-person or online, to receive therapy, medication, and specialized treatment interventions.
For clients who have just finished a residential program, stepping down into outpatient care is typically recommended. This helps people to continue receiving evidence-based therapies and interventions that have helped them break free from substance use while returning to living back home.
But for many people, outpatient treatment is the first-line approach to overcoming addiction. Depending on the severity of your substance use problem, you may not need to enter residential treatment straight away and may find that outpatient treatment provides you with everything you need to get sober and stay sober.
In-Person or Virtual Therapy
Another option is signing up for in-person or virtual therapy with a licensed therapist. Working one-on-one with a therapist can provide you with deep insight into why you’re struggling with addiction, help you explore any underlying mental health conditions, and equip you with actionable tools and healthy coping skills to leave your addiction behind once and for all.
For people nervous about enrolling in addiction treatment, meeting with a therapist can be a more comfortable spot to start. Your therapist can work with you to help reduce your substance use over time and can provide guidance on what to do if therapy alone isn’t enough to produce lasting recovery.
Start Treatment at APN Lodge Today
When you’re ready to take the next steps toward a lasting recovery, turn to the compassionate team at APN Lodge. Our comprehensive addiction and mental health services program has all the tools and services you need to overcome addiction, including several athlete-focused programs tailored to your unique needs.
Reach out to the team at APN Lodge by filling out our confidential online contact form or calling us at 855.934.1178 today.
References
- de Hon, O., Kuipers, H. & van Bottenburg, M. Prevalence of Doping Use in Elite Sports: A Review of Numbers and Methods. Sports Med 45, 57–69 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0247-x
- Reardon, Claudia L, and Shane Creado. “Drug abuse in athletes.” Substance abuse and rehabilitation vol. 5 95-105. 14 Aug. 2014, doi:10.2147/SAR.S53784
- Trevisan, L A et al. “Complications of alcohol withdrawal: pathophysiological insights.” Alcohol health and research world vol. 22,1 (1998): 61-6.
