Athletes and injuries are nothing new, but did you know that the ways in which athletes recover from injuries today — and the potential problems that often follow after being prescribed pain pills — is very new, and quite alarming. With sports being physical (and athletes becoming bigger, stronger, and faster), it’s not uncommon for an athlete to deal with an injury at some point in his or her career. The problem, however, is usually not the injury itself (most heal successfully over time), but instead the injury recovery aftercare process that often includes prescription pain killer medication (i.e. oxycodone, vicodin, and other opiates). Ironically, as the injury begins to get better, the pain pill addiction often becomes worse, all leading to very serious problems for athletes caught in this predicament (AHPS).
Athletes At-Risk
Delving deeper, it may not even be the pain pills that are the real problem these days, as pain pills have been prescribed by doctors to athletes for many years. The real problem, it seems, is that increasingly more athletes are being left on pain pill prescriptions far beyond what is needed, creating a very strong physical addiction to the medication. It’s at this precise point where the real problems develop — where the athlete has become addicted to the opiate high, but his or her script has been terminated and the cravings still persist. Sadly, more and more athletes are turning to hard-core street drugs like heroin (a relatively cheap opiate) to continue and satisfy their cravings.
For most people, the thought of a heroin-addicted person is very different than the thought of a current or former athlete in fantastic physical condition and widely popular with his or her peers. Instead, most people think of a heroin addict as a strung-out junkie, dirty and homeless, hanging around on a street corner soliciting for a few cents. In 2012 those folks still exist, but so, too, do a new breed of addicted heroin addicts that used to be amazingly skilled athletes.
When athletes become addicted to pain pills and their prescription runs out, their cravings do not end. It is at this point where they have the following three choices:
a) Try to ween themselves off their addiction
b) Purchase pain pills off the street (they have become widely available, though not cheap)
c) Move onto to a more readily available, and cheaper, street drug (usually heroin)
Unfortunately, when athletes don’t stop using yet no longer have a prescription to fill, they often turn to buying pain pills and/or heroin to prevent them from getting sick from not having the drug. In other words, they need the drug just to stay well. In these examples, athletes will sometimes sell things or even steal just so they can stay high and not experience the terrible withdrawal effects of “coming down.” This is why we sometimes see previously upstanding people do things we could never imagine them doing (i.e. stealing, holding up banks, and even prostituting for money) just so they can feed their addiction. And with heroin becoming so widely available, and relatively cheap, it’s easy to see where this story is headed.
Tips to Help
If you are a parent, coach, or an athlete who has a direct experience with pain pill (or heroin) usage/addiction, please consider the following tips and insights to help:
- First, if you are an athlete dealing with an injury talk to your doctor directly and explicitly about what alternatives there are (beyond opiates) to help manage and control your pain. Pain pills are extremely addictive, so please consider them only as a last-resort option.
- If pain pills are prescribed, work with your doctor to explore the differences amongst the available medications, as well as pill strength (milligrams). It goes without saying that you should always choose the lowest amount of pill strength to manage your pain, if possible
- If you are feeling better yet still have refills available, talk to your doctor about destroying the prescription so that the temptation to refill the script will no longer exist.
- If you are feeling addicted to pain pills (or heroin), STOP AND GET HELP. Every medical expert agrees that these are drugs that are incredibly difficult to stop using on your own, and it is likely that you will need professional assistance to help with both the physiological and psychological symptoms and side effects.
Final Thoughts
As a clinician who regularly assists athletes, I have personally seen a spike in the number of athletes caught up in pain pills (and a few that moved onto heroin as a cheap alternative). It’s astonishing how quickly this type of addiction occurs, and once it does it seems as though it is almost impossible to beat. Unlike other non-opiate drugs, athletes who are innocently prescribed opiate pain pills to help manage an athletic injury are unknowingly rolling the dice with what could be a precursor to bigger future addiction problems. It is for this reason that the entire athletic community – including athletes, coaches, parents, administrators, and sports medicine physicians – all need to tune in and take seriously the tragic potential consequences of pain pills and injured athletes.
www.drstankovich.com
