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We will cover everything from how to help an athlete with addiction to tips for substance use prevention in sports. Blood doping is a practice whereby athletes receive blood transfusions or use synthetic oxygen carriers to increase their blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity. This equates the more oxygen for the muscles, which comes with a performance boost. While the athlete’s own blood can be used if stored ahead of time, same-type blood from a third party is also an option. Anabolic steroids are synthetic drugs that mimic or enhance the effects of testosterone.

A total of 15 delegates were elected by participants to represent the Federal District. Among them are representatives from special needs groups, youth living on the street, scouts, freemasonry, lesbian gay bisexual and transgender person (LGBT) movements, student unions, and political parties. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/supplementary material. In this section, we will show you what you can do to make a difference, starting with educating youth about the dangers of steroid abuse.

Resources to Help Athletes Avoid Prohibited Substances in Sport

Males who participated in organized sports were more likely to be prescribed an opioid in past year, had higher odds of misusing and great chance of using to get high compared to non-athletic males but less risk of heroin use [23,24,25]. Opioid use over an NFL career is estimated to be around 52% with 4% using at any given time, whereas one-quarter to one-half of high school athletes have used nonprescription opioids with a lifetime opioid use between 28 and 46% [5,26]. A systematic review found that marijuana use had replaced tobacco use as the second highest used drug among athletes and others suggested one in four athletes have used marijuana recently or within the past year [27,28,29]. Overall, it is a common belief that substance abuse and addiction likely occur at a lower rate in athletes compared to the general population [2]. Competing at a high level appears to be somewhat protective in some areas of sport outside of the concept of doping.

For about a decade, scientists have discussed whether values-based approaches are more efficient (Backhouse et al., 2012). The affective domain includes the area of values-based education (e.g., moral education), as well as the areas of attitudes, motives, or emotions. Accordingly, World Anti-Doping Agency (2021) applies a broad understanding of the term and highlights the benefit of adding emotions for supporting learning. Aspects in the sense of personality development (prevention as the empowerment of self-esteem) can also be included here and can be directly related to adolescent’s developmental tasks (Havighurst, 1948). Like the cognitive domain, the aim is to internalize the elements and actively implement them in daily life, both within and outside of elite sport, such as honesty, respect, or justice. In this respect, both program components show that WADA is pursuing a very broad-based prevention concept.

Other recreational drugs

“Working” a 12-step program involves a series of steps, which include behaviors such as admitting that one is powerless over addiction (Step 1), asking God or a higher power to remove shortcomings (Step 7), and carrying the 12-step message to other alcoholics/addicts (Step 12). A number of effective intervention and prevention strategies for alcohol abuse and drug use have been identified. This section of the chapter will address those strategies that have been well-studied and have the strongest empirical support. When possible, research that has examined these approaches specifically among athletes is presented here. Most of these studies focus on alcohol use, but in some cases their findings may translate to other substances.

WADA signatories, including national federations like USA Triathlon and major race series like Ironman, use the WADA Code to enforce a consistent set of anti-doping rules in age-group and professional athletes. That means the rules that triathletes and many other athletes drug use in sports must follow get updated. Nutritional supplements include vitamins, minerals, herbs, extracts, and metabolites.39 Importantly, the purity of these substances cannot be guaranteed, such that they may contain banned substances without the athlete or manufacturer being aware.

Methods to increase oxygen transport

Before the BALCO raid, MLB didn’t impose penalties for players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. But that scandal and others forced baseball and other professional sports to significantly strengthen their anti-doping efforts. Experts say there’s been progress over the past 15 years, but that most of the anti-doping programs suffer from the same flaw. An even more difficult issue to decipher is what the safe levels of pain are in contact sports when collisions are part of the game.

Alternatively, it may involve use of substances such as alcohol or marijuana without the intent of performance enhancement, since athletes may develop substance use disorders just as any nonathlete may. Ever since doping in sports has been known to exist, efforts have been made to deter it. During this time, significant measures have been taken to punish the use of performance-enhancing drugs, deter athletes from starting them, and improve testing methods. Stimulants are drugs that act on the central nervous system by speeding up physical processes. In the female demographic race/ethnicity, and BMI are reported as significant predictors for AAS use.

The incidence of illicit substance use in elite sporting groups, based on self-report surveys, is lower than the community. Dunn et al3 reported that 7% of Australian athletes had used illicit drugs in the past year and elite Australian athletes had a 21% lifetime cannabis use, 9.5% for ecstasy and 6.7% for cocaine. These findings were similar to data from the USA; Green et al4 noted a self-report incidence of recreational drug use in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college athletes at 28.4% for marijuana, 3.1% for amphetamine and 1.5% cocaine.

All prevention measures offer starting points to initiate personal development based on one’s motivation and promote literacy. Thus, learning about healthy nutrition and its performance-enhancing effect (e.g., https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/how-to-overcome-shame-and-guilt-in-recovery/ Goldberg et al., 1996a) enables participants to improve their PL and HL. In the context of competitive sports, athletes also need permanent protection to avoid (accidentally) falling into doping traps.

(e)Online-based prevention interventions offer benefits of increased individualization but should be evaluated in terms of learning success. If they are addicted to another substance like alcohol, athletes may make bad decisions like drinking before a competition to stave off the symptoms of withdrawal. This pressure worsens addictions and leads to athletes staying silent, rather than getting the help they need. Our culture expects athletes to display mental toughness at all times, and we often view struggles with substance abuse in athletes as antithetical to that expectation. Even though science has made it clear that addiction is a chronic disease of the brain, many people still believe it is a symptom of personal failure or lack of character — especially in the sports world.