Injuries- A Gateway To Teen's Drug Addiction?

Parents should be aware that if they have kids who are involved in athletics in school, there is a chance that they become addicted to drugs like opioids and other painkiller pills to numb their pain. Student athletes who usually are on the field playing football and some who are part of the swim team are usually the victims of such addiction. This story started circulating the Internet on December 6 featuring three student-athletes who are still teenagers but are battling with substance abuse.

In an interview with The Today Show, student-athletes namely John Haskell, Spencer Gobley and Jess Jeanings, they told their story on how they got hooked doing drugs simply by joining the sports team of their respective schools. It started with them having to gain pain killers because their body went sore from all the training and practices. Gobley even remembered having to be high for him not to disappoint his coach during practice.

According to NBC's report, the same thing happened to Haskell. He shared his experience of being an athlete when at first the doctor was just checking up on him giving him a prescription for painkillers because his head was throbbing so bad. The next thing he knows, he is already at CVS getting himself Vicodin. He was only 15 years old when he started getting hooked on pain pills, which lead him to get addicted to heroin. The fact that heroin was cheaper than his usual doses of painkillers made it easier for him to be hooked at it.

Sports psychologist, Dr. Harold Shinitzky, said that parents should be more of an advocate of not resorting to drugs as much as possible when their kids are in pain. It is your job as a parent to ask your child's doctor of a safer alternative than drugs.