Escape into exercise?
The Sport Drug. By Garry Egger. George Allen and Unwin. 139 pp. $9.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Rod Dew) Any suggestion that “highs” gained through sport can be compared with “highs” gained through taking drugs must be regarded as provocative. And yet, Garry Egger, the holder of a doctor’s degree in psychobiology, manages to put forward some very reasoned arguments, in “The Sport Drug,” in favour of such a connection. He claims that the sense of wellbeing and heightened sensation achieved from physical activity are similar to experiences brought on by drug taking. Like a drug, sport can move one from the mundane world of physical reality to a space that is egoless, timeless, unstructured, carefree, painless, and even transcendental. Like a drug, Egger says, sport can be an escape. Those deeply involved in serious sport will freely concede that there are times when they drift into a kind of euphoria. There are times, too, when an athlete can lift himself or herself far above his or her normal physical resources. But to suggest anything more than a tenuous link between sport and drugs is rather fanciful. Not nearly enough emphasis is placed by Egger on the desire of sportsmen for improved personal performance, the driving force behind
most serious athletes. Sport also helps satisfy the competitive instincts most people have. If one accepts Egger’s theories then one could argue just as convincingly that the pressure or “high” achieved through solving some highly complicated mathematical problem, or merely the newspaper crossword puzzle, is linked with drug taking. The author does not claim that sport is a bad thing, although he suggests that the accent should be taken off winning and put back on enjoying. Few would disagree with that. There is a lot of sensible comment about sport in general, the effects of large sums of money on athletes, and the political uses sport can be put to. As far as the drug-sport relationship is concerned, Egger is rather like a clever debater trying to convince an audience that black is white. If his object is to promote argument and further investigation then it is possible that something of real value might come out of it. Egger is co-ordinator of health promotion in the New South Wales Department of Sport and Recreation and he has made a considerable study of drug abuse. He believes that drug addicts may be rehabilitated through the substitution of alternative “highs.” The opinion and evidence presented in “The Sport Drug” is designed, at least in part, to promote sport as one of these alternatives.
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Press, 28 May 1983, Page 16
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431Escape into exercise? Press, 28 May 1983, Page 16
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