As I recover from my Viagara adventure last night, and a headache that an Advil cured this morning, I started some deep thinking about performance enhancing drugs.

Forget Senator Mitchell's little black book of names and think in more general terms for a second. We live in a society that is dependent on drugs to enhance our performance.

If you can't get up for a woman, there's Blue Steel. If you can't get down for bed, there are sleeping pills. If you are too sick to get up for work, there's cold and flu medication. If you are feeling down, there are anti-depressants to help you up.

All of these drugs enhance our lives when our natural performance needs a boost.

Back in the world of sports, steroids - and now human growth hormone - are the drugs that have negative connotations because they are illegal but there are plenty of legal options in the drug cabinet that give professional athletes a similar, unfair boost. That begs the question: shouldn't all performance enhancing drugs be viewed in the same negative light?

When the pain is too strong to endure for an athlete, like it was for Roger Clemens at times last season, often they will take cortisone shots to get back onto the field. Football players like Chad Johnson will sit on the sidelines inhaling oxygen after a big play or will link up to an IV in the locker room at halftime. Hockey players earned the nickname "Suda-heads" for taking over-the-counter pills like Sudafed to get an energy boost, and some players, like former NBA player Darrell Armstrong, rely on caffeine and drink several cups of coffee before and during games.

If an athlete can't play at all but can take a pan killer, which will allow him to play, that enhances his performance. If an athlete can play at a mediocre level, but requires amphetamines, uppers, downers, or something else out of Hunter S. Thompson's suitcase to play at a higher level, then that is also a drug that augments their performance.

And then there are supplements, but we can save that discussion for a rainy day.

Lobbying to ban or accept all drugs in sports is not only an extreme measure, it is an unrealistic expectation. The goal is just to recognize that while steroids and HGH headline the performance enhancing club, there are plenty of other members.

I need another Advil.