11th April , 2007

Dr NICK HODGSON

Why would enormously successful sportsmen and women risk their careers, reputations and livelihoods for the temporary high of sex, drugs, violence and perhaps even crime?

There is a commonly held yet ultimately flawed assumption that the reason athletes need to take something to enhance their performance is so that they can become ‘Number One’.

PICTURE: Rodolfo Clix (www.sxc.hu). "What athletes are really searching for is an inner sense of fulfilment; a sense of wellbeing and achievement. The fact that their sporting achievements have failed to fulfil this inner desire leads them to the point of experimentation with stronger stimulation."

This assumption, however, ignores the fact that substance abuse exists at all levels of sport, and, actually, at all levels of our community. What athletes are really searching for is an inner sense of fulfilment; a sense of wellbeing and achievement. The fact that their sporting achievements have failed to fulfil this inner desire leads them to the point of experimentation with stronger stimulation.

What we are talking about is a compulsive and ultimately addictive process.

The examples are numerous: athletes who believe that if they can take a drug to help them to hit harder, run further, train more, recover faster, they will at last find their true “reward”; affluent sports performers who become entwined in match-fixing and gambling rings; high-profile football players (of all codes) turning to social drugs because the 'sporting high' no longer fulfils.

Scientifically and medically speaking, we are talking about the progression of the disease of addiction, from single substance abuse to multiple substance abuse.

The athletes who are succumbing to this decline are not merely examples of someone who just had more drive to succeed than their competitors or young rascals with too much money and spare time. They are people with a particular genetic and personality predisposition to succumb to unnatural means to find fulfilment.

It is this disorder that leads some athletes to take their sporting endeavours to obsessive proportions. When they discover that the high of winning is only temporary, and that, while the endorphin rush of training and physical prowess is fulfilling, it is not completely so, the hunger to heighten or sustain the sense of joy and pleasure that drew them into their sporting career in the first place, motivates them to try new ways to achieve the high.

What sporting administration bodies need to be focusing on is early identification of athletes at risk of this behaviour. Banning these substances does not work, as an addict, by definition, will ‘take the risk’ of being caught in the search for success. Legalisation too will fail, as the boundaries will just be stretched to a new mark by the next generation of athletes. Instead early intervention utilising the most up to date modalities will work.

Inside each of our minds’ is the chemistry and machinery responsible for us being able to achieve what is known as a “state of wellbeing”: these chemical reactions are called the “brain reward cascade”. If these endogenous chemical processes are working fully then we feel calm, relaxed, focused, loved, connected and rewarded. But if there is some kind of blockage in the chain reaction that rolls up from the bottom of the nervous system to the innermost parts of the brain, then we develop what is called “reward deficiency syndrome”.

The positive feelings are replaced by anxiety, depression, craving, frustration, and an inability to concentrate, focus and relate. The resultant response is usually one of experimentation with synthetic substances and compulsive behaviours in an attempt to heighten or replace the chemicals of reward. Ironically elite athletes may be at higher risk of these compulsions, as their striving and desire for success and greater performance on the playing field may be a symptom of their hunger for something that they perceive they don’t have.

The only true solution to this deficiency is to implement a range of strategies that help to maximise the natural and internal chemicals of reward; and which provide effective replacements for the use of synthetic stimulants that ultimately lead to abuse, dependence, negative social and health consequences and even addiction.

It would appear that Australian sporting clubs and even governing bodies are hoping to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to their role in the management and prevention of further escalation of this impending epidemic.

It simply isn’t good enough to send a player home with a smack upon the knuckles, and tell them to come back when they’ve got themselves sorted out. These offenders should be immediately directed to effective and proactive rehabilitation.

If a player injured their knee, they would be given the best that medical care has to offer; but when a player comes down with an addictive and/or compulsive disorder organisations are quick to distance themselves from the problem. Unless a rapid change in the solutions being offered this scenarios are going to be seem more and more, and in more dramatic manifestations.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature only. For advice on your specific situation, please consult your medical professional.

Dr Nick Hodgson is a chiropractor working in Victoria. Recognised by both the Chiropractors Association of Australia (Vic) for his service to the chiropractic profession, Dr Hodgson has been responsible for introducing the torque release technique (www.torquerelease.com.au), auriculotherapy and addictionology training to the Australian chiropractic profession. Nick is a Fellow of the Holder Research Institute (F.H.R.I.), has completed five of the ten modules of the Certified Addictionologist (CAd) program, and is the Australasian provider of Torque Release training. He is a member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia (CAA) and the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA), and sits on the WCA’s International Board of Governors. Visit Nick online at www.healthetalk.com.au.

© Dr Nick Hodgson 2007.

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