If you want a long and healthy sports career, then it’s best you ditch the ‘coke’

The passing of one of the football world’s “all-time greats” Diego Maradona from heart failure has been all over social media.

With all his success and fame, also came a dark side, with his known addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Why would one of the best players in the world risk everything on cocaine?

In order to understand the answer, you first need to know how cocaine affects you mentally and physically. Cocaine is a powerful stimulant that heightens your nervous system and state of arousal.

It gives athletes the perception that they can run longer, sprint quicker and be more agile, because it gives them a decreased feeling of fatigue. Cocaine does improve mental alertness, clarity and increased mood and confidence.

Cocaine has been used over the years by many athletes and as far back as 1985, 17% of the NCAA students reported having used cocaine but by 1997 that figure was reduced by 1.5%.

Five reasons why you should educate your children on the effects

Incredibly addictive

Cocaine can produce sleeping and eating disorders and in research studies it has shown that in rats and monkeys they will forego food and sleep for cocaine, because of its addictive nature. In a matter of weeks, a neurochemical change in the brain creates a dependency and, in some cases, a severe psycho-psychotic dependency. If the athlete abuses the doses of cocaine, it can cause extreme excitability, paranoia and perhaps unmasking of an underlying psychiatric disorder.

Overheating 

There are a host of problems associated with cocaine during physical exertion and in particular it increases your body’s heat production but decreases its ability to get rid of it and impairs the regulation of temperature. An easy analogy would be driving down to the coast with a supercar and you don’t  know your radiator gauge is broken. Your car is overheating but you are driving at full road speed without noticing it.  The expenditure of heat during sport is critical for performance and to be blunt, staying alive. Failure to cool down the body fast enough could lead to nausea, vomiting, heat stroke and seizures.

Withdrawals

What goes up, must naturally come down and when athletes get off their highs it negatively affects athletes in the following ways:

Difficulty concentrating

Slowed thinking

Physical fatigue

Restlessness

Increased appetite

Muscle pains

Physical Health Concerns

One of the biggest problems facing athletes who abuse cocaine is that the body elevates the entire system. The blood pressure increases, heart rate increases, sweating increases. There is a foreign substance in the body, and it tries to manage it by preparing the body and getting rid of it as quickly as possible. Cocaine is an adrenergic drug and long-term use will result in chronic stimulation of the cardiac receptor and may cause death of heart cells. This may lead to fatal cardiac arrhythmia and cardiac arrest (Davis, Loacono & Summer 2008). Some of the less severe causes other than death,  are strokes, convulsions, chronic headaches, sexual dysfunction, elevated blood pressure and abnormal blurry vision.

No end game

Players are either training hard, eating correctly or recovering during an average day. Post-match parties allow for one day post-match rest, so if players are going crazy with their addiction, it means athletes will not be ready for training the day after, both physically and mentally. It also places players at a huge risk of getting a severe injury.

Information

Why you should not use cocaine for sports performance 

Yes, it is illegal, and you will go to jail if caught with it, but it’s in terms of  what happens to your mind and body with long-term use.

If you are a competing professional athlete, random drug tests can be administered, and traces of cocaine can be found in your system between five and 22 days afterwards, depending on how you ingested the substance. You will be banned from all competition for up to two years depending on the circumstances.

There is literally no upside to taking cocaine if you are a sportsman from a career longevity point of view, and quality of life point of view.

It is a destructive drug that affects you, your career and the people around you. Despite Diego Maradona earning millions of dollars in his prime, his net- worth amounted to only $100 000 on his passing this week. So, as he passed away from cardiac arrest, sadly there was no end game for his drug abuse.

Sean van Staden

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