REVEALED PRO ATHLETES & OXYCONTIN ADDICTION (OWEN VERMEULEN) | RDMN CLIPS

1.OxyContin's Grip on Pro Athletes

And the power of those pills I've never experienced a chemical pull like that in my life and I knew after like three days of taking things was like these are going to get me like I'm not strong enough to withhold like my my willpower is just not strong enough to keep me away from these and I had to just get off them like right then talk to me about how big a problem oxy conton are and you seen this sort of tier second tier of addicts emerging now as a result of that use yeah um and yeah I see it I saw a ton of it when I was in treatment like I've went through you know various treatment centers and I saw a ton of it there with uh you know pro football players pro hockey players a lot of hockey players because you know it's Canada um but yeah they would have you know an injury and the doctor would prescribe them morphine and then oxycotton and you know with oxycotton the doctors were giving them out like candy because I think they didn't know exactly the extent of how bad those were um and then they could just they would just cut them off cold turkey and so a lot of these guys didn't have any other resource other than to go to the streets and get street drugs to compensate for you know their withdrawals and you know to continue the pain relief right so they're still in physical pain and you know mental pain because now they've lost their career and there's depression there and like I was saying before about you know the uh neurochemistry in their brain like you know maybe they're just more susceptible to to that connection with addiction than most other people so yeah I saw plenty of that in treatment where you know pro athletes would you know have one injury and it just took them down such a dark path have you watched doick yeah crazy yeah and it's it's that's a very very good example you know just the bottom line mindblowing yeah yeah it's uh those kind of shows they're they're intense but I think it's also just shows how it can take just such a hardworking day-to-day person and take them from their job from their family to the streets and to just the hell that addiction has and can put on a person can take it just that's the thing about addiction is it doesn't discriminate right like it can take anyone at any time and that's the scary part and I think that that show is kind of a good example of that as well at what point did you recover sorry at what point did you discover cycling and how big a catalyst was that in your recovery um well to be honest like cycling has always kind of been like I come from a family of professional athletes so my dad was a pro hockey player my sister she's an Olympian like she's incredible like I don't know how she did it she went through kind of the same type of uh you know the same kind of thing and she managed to just become a professional Runner she did so well for herself so I'm super proud of her for that and so I came from a family professional athletes my uncle was a you know Pro and cyclist in Europe and you know my cousin was in the world tour as well and so I think cycling was I was aware of it but I wasn't aware of the extent of it until I was in detox with a gentleman that owned a bike shop and I was lucky enough to be able to get a bike from him and you know we would sit around in the treatment center and watch tour to France and go for rides and stuff like that you know like coming from you know a genetically I think a pretty Adept family into endurance Athletics it kind of came pretty naturally so um when I discovered it it just it changed everything you know like it kind of substituted um skateboarding perfectly because you know all skateboarding is is so much time and energy in the same kind of way cycling has too so you know you can go out there with friends or you can go out there solo and just put the time and the effort in and that's kind of what I was doing at that time was just going out for long rides all day every day and I treated it somewhat to skateboarding was like you know if you get better you got to get better you got to put in tons of time and tons of effort and yeah so I kind of saw the true side of cycling like kind of learned how team tactics were kind of learn saw more the racing side of cycling as opposed to you know what I grew up with with my family and what's interesting with cycling the structure of it in competitive cycling at least it's it's built the architecture is built in such a way that there's such a perfect feedback loop when you put in more effort you get better results they're rewarded with points and then you cut up so you start off cut four you put in some effort now you're a cat three you put in some more effort now you're a cat two you put in some more effort now you're a cat one it's really incentivized to keep you progressing which has got to be so helpful for staying clean well and that's kind of like where I first really saw the growth in how cycling was working for me so well not just in recovery but just in finding a substitute a for skateboarding and like you know I feel like I've always been a pretty athletic person throughout my whole life like you know Athletics was pushed on us so much as growing up coming from professional athletes you know and so when I found cycling and you know I went into my first race and I think I I had no idea how to race I just went out there from the gun and just rode as hard as I could didn't know what the hell I was doing doing ended up winning by like 3 minutes and I was like oh okay this is fun and then I had some friends that kind of were like oh well this is how it works like you know this is kind of how the categories work this is what the teams are this is blah blah and I always I didn't have a team for quite a while first year or so but that's where I saw that growth was I would go from Cat 4 and then you know I went up to cat 3 cat two cat one and that's where that growth was really kind of validating for me that I had chosen the right path