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Student athletes’ use of substance abuse is major issue in the world of sports. Does the old theory stating that student athletes tend to stay away from drugs and alcohol hold true today? From my personal experience as a former high school athlete, I doubt this is true. With the many records of student athletes being arrested for alcohol and drug abuse, substance abuse has truly become a problem. The studies available show the correlation of usage between student athletes and the general student population? Hopefully, this information would be helpful in setting up a drug prevention program at the high school and middle school level. If so, maybe society could improve its efforts at alleviating this problem.
Many of these problems underly in the attitudes of these athletes. Of the athletes who are considered at risk of using substance abuse, seventeen percent of the athletes felt that marijuana use was an acceptable way to deal with the pressures of athletics. Instead of abstaining from use due to health risks, many refrain from drug use simply due to the fear of getting caught. Peer pressure from teammates is also indicated as a major influence as to whether or not athletes use o
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Why are college athletes at risk for drug abuse and effective drug treatment programs? Many college athletes feel that the programs should at least try to improve the overall health of the student athlete along with the deterring drug use. However, they found no difference in the frequency of alcohol consumption between female athletes and non-athletes. No significant difference was found between the drinking behaviors of athletes and non-athletes, although athletes did report more consumption of beer. ”
Based upon their reasoning, researchers looked into possible psychological factors dealing with drug use by college athletes while comparing athlete drug users to non-users. There was also no difference in the frequency of alcohol and between male and female athletes, but three fourths of the male athletes reported being under the influence when consuming alcohol compared to half of the
female athletes. Overall, males had a more tolerant attitude than females toward temperate and irresponsible use of alcohol. They found non-athletes used alcohol more and were more tolerant of others using it compared to athletes. Moreover, they used less alcohol during their in-season than off-season. To my surprise, team leaders were found just as irresponsible as their teammates concerning alcohol. Male athletes are found most likely to use marijuana and to use it more than male non-athletes would.
Due to these students attitudes, many wonder if there were any psychological factors associated with alcohol use or non-use by high school athletes. Male and female athletes consumed significantly more alcohol per week, engaged in binge drinking more often, and suffered more adverse consequences from their drug problems. Surprisingly, high school alcohol users had higher self-esteem scores overall than low/no alcohol users.
Overman and Terry compared the patterns of use and attitudes toward alcohol and college athletes and non-athletes.
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