ut Boxing legend Mike Tyson battled painful injuries throughout his career. However, a recent statement stunned his fans when he admitted taking a powerful drug to control his pain.
Although it sounds surprising, many elite athletes rely on strong painkillers. Still, not all are allowed under sports regulations, but Tyson didn’t seem to care.
The search for relief that became an addiction
According to the New York Post, Tyson revealed his story on the “Katie Miller Podcast”, admitting he used fentanyl to ease the pain of an injury during his career. Fentanyl is a potent opioid approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It can only be prescribed because in the wrong dose, it is deadly.
“It was a painkiller, and I used it to patch up my toe… It was like heroin: once it wears off and you take off the bandage, you start withdrawing, vomiting, just like heroin… But it was illegal if it entered my bloodstream. It was a narcotic, my friend told me. It was completely new. Asked my friend: ‘Could I use this?’ Nobody had heard of it,” Tyson said.
Tragically, Arturo Gatti, Tyson’s close friend, died in 2009 from opioid use, as The Post reported in an interview with the champion.
Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin. For this reason, Tyson became addicted for a long time, since it provided relief for the severe pain in his feet. However, he eventually overcame the addiction and now promotes marijuana use as a safer alternative for pain management.
