Should drug rehab be in the cards for athletes who violate professional drug policies? Drug abuse by professional athletes is not a new story. No one can forget Jose Canseco’s admitted use or anabolic steroids mentioned in his tell-all book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big where Canseco admitted that around 85% of major league baseball players use steroids and even specifically identified former players that he abused drugs with. A story that most likely prompted congress to step in and introduced a new bill called the Professional Athletes Testing Bill which established the minimum drug testing standards for all major professional sports leagues, with the hope was to curb the ever-growing number of athletes turning to drugs to “enhance performance.”
Unfortunately it didn’t do the trick. Even after this bill was released we have continued to see further problems with substance abuse in the professional athlete circle with no real solution in sight to help these athletes to get some type of drug treatment. Most recently there have been many media articles about J.C. Romero’s alleged use of performance enhancing drugs that left him with a 26 game suspension from professional baseball. J.C. has come out stating that he was taking a nutritional supplement and didn’t know that supplement contained any ingredients that would violate the professional baseball policy on drugs.
But right or wrong, guilty or not guilty, shouldn’t athletes testing positive for drug use have to seek some type of effective treatment for substance abuse? It may depend on the drugs being taken, as many of the so-called performance-enhancing drugs are related to amphetamines as well as steroids. “Leaving a substance abuse untreated is one of the worst things you can do to the individual,” says Ramsy Darwish, Director of Intake for Narconon Freedom Center.
“Because what happens when you fail to treat an addiction is that the problem grows progressively worse.” And Darwish should know. He has helped hundreds of people with substance abuse issues get their lives back through the Narconon Freedom Center drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. The Narconon program stably achieves a greater than 70% success rate for addiction and has been doing so for the last 44 years. Narconon specializes in all types of addiction, even those to performance enhancing drugs which can be especially harmful to the individual. “Drugs like steroids are associated with a wide range of negative effects,” says Darwish.
“They can range from things that are physically unattractive to major effects like strokes and heart attacks that can affect users of all ages.” Without some type of effective drug treatment option professional athletes do not have many options to really beat their addictions and this is something that could take them out off the game for good. Implementing a drug rehab policy in all professional sports, when an athlete test positive for drug use, will return the individual back to the game stable, ethical and drug-free. Their "edge" would come from their work ethic and dedication to the game rather than a chemical alteration.
If you or someone you know is suffering with drug abuse issues contact Narconon Freedom Center today at 877-362-9682 or log onto www.freedomdrugrehab.com.
