Pubdate: Mon, 2 Nov 1998
Source: The European
Section: Sport
Contact:  http://www.the-european.com/
Author: Michael Butcher

EUROPE: HEROIN REPLACES SPORT'S HIGHS

ENGLAND's  football coach Glenn Hoddle, could be storing up problems
for his players by allowing them to be injected with vitamin
supplements. Researchers in France claim to have discovered a link
between injecting harmless substances and heroin addiction.

Dr William Lowenstein noticed a high number of elite sportsmen among
heroin addicts at the Monte Cristo Centre in Paris. The sports covered
the spectrum from football to weightlifting.

One factor in hard-drug dependency is the simple act of inserting a
needle into flesh. Constant injections mean that the first hurdle in
drug taking becomes routine, that of body piercing.

As many sportsmen who inject far stronger substances, such as
steroids, will testify, the main buzz comes from the rite of the
needle as much as the effect of the drug.

"Heroin addicts will shoot up warm water if they have no heroin," said
Harry Shapiro of the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence in
London. "They are fixated by the whole ritual."

Five per cent of Lowenstein's patients had been in an Olympic squad,
15 per cent had participated at European championship level, 20 per
cent at national and 30 per cent at regional level. The remainder came
under the heading of "others" but all had played sport for at least
three hours per day for an average of seven and a half years.

As Lowenstein talked to them, something more than a simple mechanical
relationship between needle and flesh began to emerge. Though his
patients looked back upon their involvement in sport as a golden age
in their lives, it was only when he dug deeper that he uncovered an
uncomfortable fact. "Sport functioned as their first hard drug - an
anaesthetic and an antidepressant," he said.

Before engaging in sport, none of the addicts had touched drugs of any
kind. Fifty per cent became involved with heroin during their sporting
career.

The elite athlete fills his or her day with training and preparing for
competition. The ever-increasing workload makes the impact even more
devastating when this focus disappears through injury or retirement.
It is then that refuge is sought in the needle to escape the reality
of inactivity; Lowenstein calls it "existential" and believes that
more attention should be paid to preparing the sportsman for failure.

"The further they go, the more difficult it is for them to fail," he
said. "In the sporting milieu, the only response when you fail is to
say, at best, that you will win the next time. You cannot escape."

This is when the temptation to take performance-enhancing drugs
appears. That, as Lowenstein has found, may open the door to heroin
addiction, the one leading almost inexorably to the other in the
overwhelming number of his cases. Before graduating to heroin, 90 per
cent of his subjects had tried drugs such as steroids, amphetamines
and cocaine.

As every alcoholic starts with the first drink, so every drug addict
begins with the first injection. The more a footballer's leg resembles
a pin cushion, the greater is the danger that something more potent
may eventually find its way into his system.

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Checked-by: Rich O'Grady