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Drug Addiction In Sports Essay

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The use of illegal substances by athletes has drastically increased in the past years. In effect, illegal substances have led to numerous of deaths from high school, college, and pro-athletes. Illegal substance use is recent and controversial. In the last couple years, football players of all ages have died due to the use of distinct materials, mainly ephedrine. Recently, during the summer of 2016, University of Arizona's offensive lineman, Zach Hemmila, passed away in his sleep. Zach, who was an honor roll student in high school and a sharp individual, was introduced to painkillers when injuring his leg junior year of college football; distributed from the team doctor. After relying on the painkillers things escalated quickly, …show more content…

People can be addicted to a variety of things from food to favorite television shows, to drugs and alcohol. Drug addiction has skyrocketed over the past two years, and a major addiction runs with athletes. A primary cause for addiction in athletes starts with doping. Doping is defined as a performance enhancement and has discovered in athletes of all ages and every level of competition (Catlin DH, Murray TH). People tend not to recognize when addiction captures them. The majority of athletes becomes addicted to painkillers will notice the transition of habits, then being introduced to other illegal substance. The players continue to take it, try different materials, and do not notice what is wrong with the picture and what they are doing to the human body and the people surrounding them. Roman's mother did not see what he's sup to until she caught him. The majority of individuals do not know when one's child is in danger because they do not see any significant changes, "[they] look so healthy, not like a junkie," (Bo) stated Roman's mother in the article. A major setback is when thinking that the addiction was behind them due to continuing athletics when in reality it is just a cover up. Another, hard thing for addicts to accept is that they are addicted and that the drug is the person's best friend and is manipulative and cunning. Addiction is known to be one of the hardest things to accept. Warren Sapp, former NFL player, and ESPN commentator, talked about the easy access to painkillers during the sport, "it's like Tic Tacs, [athletes] walked in, [they] got it and [they] played the game," (Jenkins and Rick). It becomes a daily routine as if the trainer were taping ankles before the match. Pain leads to abuse. This is why numerous athletes do not know what complications they are dealing with until it is too late. There are over twenty-three million Americans that are addicted to

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