The Psychological Concequenses of Doping

[ray j willings]

Depression hits people in all walks of life. If your a pro cyclist, getting well paid and living your dream and getting depressed then chances are you would be getting depressed whatever you do. There are plenty of athletes and people who have taken drugs and stopped quite successfully. Their are plenty of people who just drink tea and have severe depression. It's about the individual. For some the drugs will work for others they won't.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

living a pro life is above all, depressing. always far from family. always training, eating, sleeping. i get depressed only when i think about it
you basically do all the sacrifices and you will most likely still be remembered as a cheat if you fail some test. that must be brutal
i think tonkov said it the best comparing pro cyclists to traction horses who never look left or right. they just look in front of them and suffer big time

while depression can happen to anyone, i reckon i would find it rather surprising to find a single pro cyclist who never experienced it.
pro cyclist is a hard as hell job. doping or no doping

Is any part of this post anything but wild speculation and massive generalization?

 

[jens_attacks]

Is any part of this post anything but wild speculation and massive generalization?

duh. i'm posting in the freaking clinic...

 

[mrhender]

Depression hits people in all walks of life. If your a pro cyclist, getting well paid and living your dream and getting depressed then chances are you would be getting depressed whatever you do. There are plenty of athletes and people who have taken drugs and stopped quite successfully. Their are plenty of people who just drink tea and have severe depression. It's about the individual. For some the drugs will work for others they won't.

I think it depends wether or not you acknowledge the premise that to be competetive -you need to dope..
If you cannot build a succesful career "living your dream" without also living kind of a double life.
Lying to your fans-family-friends-media etc...
Of course there are differences in how the individual handles this and take it in, so to say. But there is in my opinion a natural environmental influence in any kind of social arena and/or profession. In the case of cycling (and probably most top sports) this influence will put your inner moral compass to the test, and that is not the same as being a postman, or a working in wall-mart..

I think they justify the doping (because they think/know) it's what you have to do. I agree that some will never be affected by this, but I also think that if they where not "build" that way it has transformed them thus the culture in cycling is altering it's participants. So on the long run i can see that might not be for the better of your psychological well-being...

 

[sniper]

living a pro life is above all, depressing. always far from family. always training, eating, sleeping. i get depressed only when i think about it
you basically do all the sacrifices and you will most likely still be remembered as a cheat if you fail some test. that must be brutal
i think tonkov said it the best comparing pro cyclists to traction horses who never look left or right. they just look in front of them and suffer big time

while depression can happen to anyone, i reckon i would find it rather surprising to find a single pro cyclist who never experienced it.
pro cyclist is a hard as hell job. doping or no doping

Depression hits people in all walks of life. If your a pro cyclist, getting well paid and living your dream and getting depressed then chances are you would be getting depressed whatever you do. There are plenty of athletes and people who have taken drugs and stopped quite successfully. Their are plenty of people who just drink tea and have severe depression. It's about the individual. For some the drugs will work for others they won't.

good posts me thinks