Men's Journal: The NFL's Secret Drug Problem

[Vilandil Tasardur]

http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/in-this-issue-the-nfls-secret-drug-problem-20121019

"I had it all planned," says Lucas. "I was gonna drive straight off the George Washington Bridge, and if I didn't clear the barrier – I got a big truck – I was gonna get out and jump. I was on 17 different drugs: narcotics, psych meds, sleep aids, muscle-relaxers, and nothing, man – none of them worked."

Lucas' intake was extreme, but his story is not. Pain-pill dependence is the NFL's dirty secret, and the next wave of trouble to breach its shore. In a months-long investigation involving dozens of former players, as well as their attorneys, physicians, and addiction counselors, what emerges is a picture of a professional league so swamped by narcotics that it closes its eyes to medical malpractice by many of its doctors and trainers. It does so not because it lacks the will to police its staff and players, but because the game itself could not survive without these powerful drugs. "The wear and tear on our spines and knees – we all had to take that to play," says Richard Dent, the Hall of Fame terror of those great Bears' defenses of the 1980s and 1990s, who is now hobbled by back pain and headaches. "We got pills from the trainer, and where he got them, I don't know. But we were all involved with that."

"Your body ain't made to go through a wall 50, 60 times a game," says Fred McCrary, a Super Bowl fullback with the Patriots in 2003, now belabored by daily migraines and bum shoulders. "By week three, they'd give you whatever you wanted – and, still, guys smoked weed for the pain."

Read more: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/in-this-issue-the-nfls-secret-drug-problem-20121019#ixzz2AQIHsNFK

Did anybody else catch this article? I read it in its entirety in the print version of the magazine, but I'm not sure if there is a way to share the whole thing with you guys. If anyone else has read it, I'd really like to hear what other people think about it. I found it exceptionally well researched, incredibly powerful, and quite thought provoking.

[China]

This isn't new. After all, Brett Favre is one of the poster boys for pain killer addiction:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/features/favre/flashbacks/bitter_pill/

[Vilandil Tasardur]

Absolutely. And Favre was very, very vocal about his problem. But how do you feel about the ease with which players can come by the medication?

[China]

I don't find it surprising at all. I'm sure there are physicians that are abusing their scrip writing privileges. Unfortunately, I don't think much will come of it until somebody overdoses.

[Mr. Sinister]

Going off of that excerpt, it's not surprising to me that they're taking that stuff. Just seeing the type of collisions that they put their bodies through in just one game, I'm sure that it would be hell just to get out of bed, then you have to go through practices, and only have six days to heal to the best of your ability, before you go back out there again. I would think that it is very easy to get addicted to pain relievers of all kinds, and finding ways to cope with it.

[China]

The title says "secret." I don't think there's anything secret about it. Hell, I mentioned Favre, but the abuse of painkillers in the NFL is well known and been rampant for so long it was even made fun of in movies going back to the '70s.

[DM72]

Unfortunately, I don't think much will come of it until somebody overdoses.

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been as many football players that has dropped dead as there are pro wrestlers that has died over the past 15 years.