Steroids: Facts and Fairytales

In recent years, the subject of anabolic steroid use among athletes has been in the public spotlight. As with anything that becomes so public that members of Congress and regulatory agencies become involved, it becomes difficult to separate the facts from the fairytales. The purpose of this article is to educate the reader and I cite my research at the end so you can make your own judgments about my sources. We will: define anabolic steroids, discuss their side effects, outline the methods of use and delivery, and look at how they can be obtained (illegally and legally). My own story and decisions are included in the article, but they are not your morality; what you decide to do with the information herein is up to you with no judgment from me. I will check the article occasionally and respond to discussion posts when there are any.

A little about me: I was usually one of the fat kids in school. It wasn't that I was inactive; my genes are German-Bohemian and there is no athletic talent in my family. Anytime I joined sports like the YMCA basketball and swim teams, or high school football, it didn't seem to matter how hard I worked, I could never quite make it past average and it took me forever to recover from injuries. This trend continued in the Army where I spent four years making leaps and bounds in my own training, but always falling short of promotion-winning performance, and sometimes fighting to stay in the Army at all. After the Army, I found a sport that I enjoyed more than anything I had ever done: mixed martial arts, or MMA. My training alternated between free weights, cardio, Thai-boxing, and Brazilian ju-jitsu. In the best shape of my life, I was still unable to get past "average." I expressed frustration to my training partner for boxing, Tom, and he offered me Winstrol, an oral anabolic steroid. I was repulsed and critical of Tom, but I became obsessed with the idea of finally being able to push past average. Soon I learned that more than 60% of my colleagues were "juicing." So began my long study of steroids.

Anabolic Steroids: What are they?

Most simply put, anabolic steroids synthesize testosterone, a natural male hormone. All performance enhancers are often lumped into the steroid category, but this is merely packaging for people who have an agenda. Performance enhancing drugs that do not synthesize testosterone such as stimulants, sedatives (i.e.: beta blockers used by archers and musicians), human growth hormone (HGH), and corticosteroids are not anabolic steroids (Performance Enhancing Drugs Wikipedia). Other performance enhancing schemes that often arise during a discussion of anabolic steroids (hereafter just referred to as steroids) are blood doping or blood packing, and altitude chambers like those used by cyclists Floyd Landis and Jan Ulrich (Westemeyer); these produce excess red blood cells, not testosterone.

Effects of Use

There are, in my opinion, three categories of people who use steroids: men over the age of 21, women over the age of 21, and everyone else. Let's be clear: no one, not even the most hardcore roid nuts, advocate the use of steroids by anyone younger than 21 years. Why? Most often cited reasons are the premature fusing of growth plates and severe acne (MSNBC) but the real reason is that if you're under 21, you don't need synthetic testosterone. Your endocrine system is in its prime and is producing all the testosterone you need, in most cases. If you believe that you are not producing the testosterone you need at this age, then you need to see your doctor, not a dealer.

According to Lindsay Sutton at Vanderbilt University, steroid use is increasing among women. Positive side effects include lean body mass, feelings of euphoria, and heightened sexual interest. Sutton claims that steroid use for personal pleasure is fairly common among women, and there are articles out there about it, but none of my female friends who use have acknowledged this aspect of using. Negative physical side effects, which are directly proportionate to dose and duration of use, include growth of body and facial hair, decrease in breast size, increase in the size of the clitoris, acne, and in extreme cases of heavy use, the jaw line can begin to square like a man's along with the development of a male body shape (Sutton). Unlike men, the side effects of steroids in women do not always reverse upon the cessation of use. Sometimes the effects can last for life. Negative emotional side effects vary wildly among women but usually reverse once the drug is no longer used. I spoke with 14 female acquaintances who use regularly and there was no identifiable pattern to the effects on their emotions or behavior.

For men, the benefits of steroids are obvious: lean body mass, quicker recovery from workouts, increased sex drive, and that euphoric feeling of having a 17 year-old's endocrine system in your 30 year old body. More testosterone is just more of what makes you a man. Negative side effects of light to moderate users include: increase in body hair, acne, and disrupted sleep. In order for muscle growth to maximize, an athlete must sleep well, so many users also use a regular sleep aid (Bodybuilding Sleep Requirements). Another effect seen on moderate users is testicular atrophy. Your testicles are where the testosterone producing glands are located and if you're not using them to produce it, then you lose them, just like unused muscle. Users of oral steroids may suffer liver damage and should have their liver enzymes checked every three months or so. Heavy users can suffer additional side effects including higher cholesterol, heart problems, Gynecomastia (bitch tits), and depression when cycling off the roids or trying to quit altogether. Media reports of so-called "roid-rage" are often huge exaggerations of an infrequent side effect, although men will notice some increase in their aggressiveness, it's just not enough to make them psychotic killers (the Chris Benoit murder-suicide was widely blamed on steroids by the media). UPDATE: According to ABC NEWS, Benoit suffered from dementia brought on from being hit in the head too many times. "Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient."

The big benefit for men is that nearly all side effects of juicing go away when the subject discontinues use of the drug (even the testicular atrophy). Men trying to quit steroids altogether should consult a physician as they do so.

Which brings me to a brief aside. My wife is an Osteopathic family physician. None of what I have written here is endorsed by her or any other physician except the following: there is NO reason not to tell your doctor that you're using steroids, whether legally or illegally. If your doctor flips out over it, switch to a doctor that deals more often with athletes and you'll have a partner who can help you manage your health while on steroids in complete confidence. Your doctor cannot turn you over to the law if you confide in her that you're using.

One of the fairytales about juicing is that it, by itself, is a path to athletic performance. In fact, athletes on steroids work far harder than "natural" athletes in many cases and are able to do so because of quicker recovery. My friends and I joke about a guy we knew who went down to Mexico, brought back lots of roids, used them for 7 months, but forgot to work out. The result: his appetite became insatiable and he engaged in no activity to offset it. He reminded me of Eric Cartman from the South Park "Beefcake" episode.

Another fairytale about steroids is that they will cause baldness. If you are already prone to baldness and are going to go bald anyway, steroids will accelerate the process, but if men in your family keep their hair for life, steroids will not change that for you.

Methods of Delivery

There are 3 primary methods of delivery: topical, oral, and injection. Topical testosterone supplements are available by prescription and include products like Androderm patches and Androgel. In the gyms I frequent, only one oral steroid is used: Winstrol, stanazolol for those of you with a Physician's Desk Reference. There are others, mostly available from veterinary clinics.

The most popular method in the gym is testosterone by intramuscular injection and the most popular drug among my friends is Deca Durabolin, a delivery form of Nandralone. There are lots and lots of different injectable steroids, too many to discuss here. There is plenty of information on the web as to which one is right for you.

Methods of obtaining.

Chris Bell's documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which is available as an Instant View movie on Netflix.com, describes four methods of procuring steroids: purchase online by mail, purchase from a dealer, purchase by visiting a country where they're legal, and prescription.

I don't know anyone who buys their roids online. Chris Bell interviews people in his documentary that do. The way it works is that the orders are filled in and shipped from countries where steroids are legal, like Mexico. It doesn't raise a lot of eyebrows at the post office because lots of people order prescription meds from out of country to save money. The best way to find a good source is to find someone else who already uses that source and is getting good product. Blindly ordering your roids from an unfamiliar source could get you a box filled with little bottles of Caro syrup, if you get any product at all. Really, if you get cheated trying to buy an illegal drug, what are you going to do? Call the attorney general? A further disadvantage of mail order roids is that you're committing the tack-on charge of mail fraud.

All of my acquaintances get their juice from the same source. He's a local semi-pro bodybuilder who personally buys his stock in Mexico and uses his own product. The big advantage is that his customers know what they're getting. The biggest disadvantage, and what keeps a couple of my friends awake at night, is that if he gets busted, he may rat out all his clientele for his own benefit.

Another of Chris Bell's interview subjects actually lives close enough to the Mexican border to make occasional trips there. While there he purchases steroids from a pharmacy, and then injects himself with a fast-acting testosterone and a slow-acting testosterone such as testosterone cypionate or Winstrol Depo. The slow-acting steroid will stay in his system for 3-4 weeks. This is perfectly legal as the injections are done in Mexico.

Lastly, if you're over 30 and you want testosterone, chances are you can get it by visiting an anti-aging clinic and complaining of a hormone deficiency. Symptoms of hormone deficiency include erectile dysfunction, low libido, and mild depression. Since there is no solid rule as to what a testosterone deficiency really is, continued visits to anti-aging clinics will eventually win you a prescription. This method is legal so long as you do not engage in doctor shopping, which is an attempt to get multiple prescriptions for the same condition from different doctors. Biggest disadvantage is that the doctor controls your dose, which will usually be 2.5 - 5mg of testosterone per day. If your doc insists on prescribing the newest delivery system, like Androderm, this can also be very expensive. Otherwise, a call to a local pharmacy indicates that testosterone cypionate will run about $9 per dose (sold in bottles of 10 doses) plus about $1.10 per needle, used every three to five weeks.

It's been a while since I've been in competitive sports. Marriage, white-collar work, and years at home with a special needs child have taken their toll and I find myself overweight and out of shape. I'm back in the gym and the muscle is coming back and the fat is going away quickly, but once again I wonder how much better it could be with steroids. Unlike my MMA days, I do not have a lot of expendable income. Most of my friends that were using then are using now, or have been using on and off. They have suffered none of the media-hyped side effects. I dare say that if I had the money now, I would be less inhibited toward steroid use as I was those years ago.

Works Cited

"Q&A: Impact of steroids on young athletes." MSNBC. 5 FEB 2008. 3 JAN 2009 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22994497/.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster: Side Effects of Being American. Dir. Chris Bell. Perf. Chris Bell. DVD. Magnolia, 2008.

"Bodybuilding Sleep Requirements ." WarriorFX.com. 20 JAN 2008. 6 Nov 2008 <http://www.warriorfx.com/2008/01/bodybuilding-sleep-requirements/>.

"Performance-enhancing drugs." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 31 Oct 2008, 00:55 UTC. 9 Nov 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Performance-enhancing_drugs&oldid=248730798>.

Sutton, Lindsay. "ANABOLIC STEROIDS: Not Just For Men Anymore." VanderbiltUniversity. 7 Nov 2008 <http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/anabolic_steroids.htm>.

Westemeyer , Susan. "Ullrich: "Something has been taken away from me"." Cyclingnews.com 13 Nov 2006 9 Nov 2008 http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/nov06/nov13news.