Addiction, Cycling and Drugs
Are you a young person who has got into using drugs? Perfectly happy?, Uncertain? A bit worried – anxious – frightened? You could benefit from listening to David Millar – a cyclist – a champion who used drugs, .
Listen to the video, understand what Millar is saying. Perhaps it is time to reconsider aspects of your life, perhaps in particular your attitude towards dependence upon and regular use of drugs.
Does using drugs make your life feel “too easy” – but empty of satisfaction?
Are you scared to give up drugs, in case people discover the “real” you?
Do you feel that people could have done better, who should have cared for you?
If so, you should continue and view the video – it most certainly has something to say.
It is a powerful video – a hard talking video from BBC, UK.
David Millar was a Tour De France winner and world champion – but he did it on drugs, got no satisfaction from it, lived a lie, and was grateful when, finally, he got busted.
But instead of retreating in shame, the agony of personal humiliation and despair, Millar after two years suspension, decided to come back - committed to living clean, and to cleaning up the sport.
As Millar says, he was not there for the personal enjoyment, the challenge: doped up on drugs, he was just there to win. And win he did – but found it an empty, hollow victory - it essentially meant nothing – “there was not much feeling“.
Millar says he felt and knew that he was cheating.
And Millar being intelligent, knowing that he was living a lie, that was not providing satisfaction – why did he not turn himself in, confess to , give up the illusion.
Millar says, quite frankly, - I would have lost everything, my pride and ego – and everything – to have confessed, would have meant that I was destroyed.
Very often when people use drugs, it is because deep down they feel uncertain and insecure, and drugs provide the antidote, the cure, provide you with the confidence, the ability that you feel you lack.
In ordinary life, as in sport, the feelings are the same – we want to be successful, to feel pride in our achievements, to be happy.
It is too easy to put the blame for our failings on parents, our environment, sheer bad luck and fate – life is not and never was a level playing field, nor a bed of roses. Ironically, people take drugs to gain control, to make themselves feel better, and always, it will be the drugs in the end that gain the upper hand, until drug use controls your life.
It takes courage to face up to the fact that your choice to do drugs was probably the biggest mistake of your life. Some people, like Millar, simply continue until circumstances force the issue.
Getting banned from the sport that you love is a day of reckoning. For others it can be losing your job, being the cause of a fatal road accident, or coming to home to a drug intervention that family and friends might feel is the only way to make you see reason about the destructive use of drugs.
No one denies that doing drugs makes you feel good, at least in the beginning – that’s why people use them. But you don’t have to hit rock bottom to see that drugs are harming you, to make a decision to stop.
The hardest part about giving up drug use that it forces us into a confrontation with the reality of who we are, and in particular those feelings that we have about who we are that we are least comfortable with. Drug use helps us to fill a reality gap – without drugs we feel powerless, vulnerable and uncertain. We will never know the capacity for real performance and strength that is within our potential if we decide to make use of drugs to create the illusion of achievement.
Too many people today, in life and in sport, use drugs to enhance mood, increase drive, performance and focus. While stimulant drugs might help us to achieve an optimal “peak” performance – drugs can never in fact, make us achieve anything better than the personal best that we could have achieved for ourselves – if we were fully focused, prepared and ready to give it all that we have got.
Doubts, and lack of confidence often get in the way of us simply getting on and getting ahead in life. People who use drugs, instead of improving their self confidence and skills set themselves up for long term failure. Drug use is ultimately damaging. The longer drugs are used, and relied upon, the less confidence we will have in ourselves to be able to perform without the use of drugs.
Whether we are a champion athlete needing drugs to have a “win”, or someone who feels that they need to take drugs just to feel “normal”, there is only one solution to the problem of drug use, and that is to quit drug use for good, and to stand on your own two feet.
The tragedy of drug use in high performance achievers is that the potential is already within them if only they could overcome their self doubt and negativity, and get focused naturally, without using drugs as a crutch.
The potential is there for everyone to overcome self doubt and negativity to become the best that they can be.
Working to improve faults and failings is where we gain satisfaction, not in masking our inadequacies with the illusion that drug use creates.
Comprehensive programs for alcohol and drug addiction recovery
provide an effective detox and rehab that enables you to achieve your best potential,
reach your goals and achieve happiness and contentment –
with complete freedom from all drug use.
Addicts go through many changes throughout their journey. Most begin with experimentation, but quickly develop a dependency and addiction. Along with the severity of the addiction come many behavioral and physical changes. It is most often the friends and family members of the addict who first see the changes, as the addict begins and continues to deny them. Physical changes can include:
How May Someone Become Addicted to a Prescribed Drug?
