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Strory 1
If I knew then what I know now...Presented by: Todd Ganci
I grew up in a big family; I was the third of five kids, three girls and two boys. My father met my mother during World War II. My father was a Captain in the Army and my mother was a nurse in Germany.
My mother was, and is, a very hard worker. She's still into gardening and landscaping in her 70's. When she was in her fifties she leveled a huge hill in our back yard with a shovel. It was a hill large enough to take a bulldozer half a day to flatten; it took her the entire spring and summer. When I was a kid, she worked as a registered nurse, kept the lawn landscaped and manicured like something you'd see in Better Homes & Gardens. She always had great home-cooked meals on the table.
My father was an incredible athlete who made the Hall of Fame in high school football. He played pro baseball for awhile until he got hurt. He later ran marathons in to his 60s. He had me throwing a baseball when I was three years old. I remember playing eight-year-old Hash and pitching entire games without throwing a ball or allowing anyone to get a foul tip. Every inning was over in nine pitches. I played and loved many different sports. I was smaller in stature than other kids my age but I was always very strong for my size.
My brother, who was 4 years older than me, started hanging with the wrong crowd and began drinking and drugging at an early age. I remember seeing him drunk when I was 12 and he was 16, it shocked and saddened me. He was slurring his words and stumbling when he walked. I decided from that moment on that I wanted no part of drinking and recreational drugging.
I played baseball and hockey throughout high school. I started lifting weights after graduating from high school. I started with a plastic Kmart weight set in my room. I weighed 130 lbs and was bench pressing 150 lbs. Six months later, clueless about nutrition, without any drugs or supplements of any kind, I weighed 145 lbs and was bench pressing 340 lbs. I was working out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, training only upper body. I knew nothing about nutrition, my diet was horrible and it was way before the age of any decent supplements of any kind. All that was available was desiccated liver tablets and clumpy egg protein that tasted like it was formulated on 3 Mile Island!
I entered a few local teen bodybuilding contests. I went in green, white as a sheet and totally oblivious. I didn't realize you had to diet and tan prior to entering bodybuilding contests - - it was ugly. The second contest I entered I was competing against bodybuilders who would later go on to win Mr. Universe.
I entered 3 more contests 100% natural over the next 2 years. I was pretty much the only natural competitor in the contests; it was before the age of drug tested competitions. My best placing at the time was 5th.
I continued training hard, drug-free for a total of four years. Most of the time I was training every day, four hours a day, seven days a week. I was working out at a gym where almost every guy was juiced to the gills. Even though I was 100% natural I was still stronger than most of them. Four years after I began working out I weighed 170 lbs, I was benching 370 and squatting 405 for 10 (all the way to down - not high chair squats). A couple of the guys who were juicing used to razz me calling me Mr. Natural. I used to say stuff like "You guys haven't been clean since the Pilgrims landed,” or “you guys must be helpful around the house breast feeding your baby brothers with that gyno!"
I started training even harder. Eventually I was constantly injured. My body couldn't recover from the intense workouts, over training and lack of nutrition. I got tired of limping around having people ask me “how’s it going old timer?”
I began to contemplate trying steroids, so I starting researching them. One of the books I read was the Underground Steroid Handbook which seemed to promote and glorify the use of steroids. In my opinion, if someone's on the fence about trying steroids reads this book, they'll most likely try them. (One of the author's of the book passed away in 2000 at the age of 48.)
I also ran the idea of steroids by my allergist. He told me I shouldn’t take them because if I ever had an allergy attack, I wouldn’t respond to steroids if they were already in my system. I believe he, like many others, was confusing anabolic steroids (i.e., Testosterone) with catabolic steroids (i.e., Prednisone). I did so much research and read so many conflicting reports, my head was spinning
After researching for close to a year, I finally decided to try steroids. I made an appointment to see a German doctor who wrote scripts for lots of the guys at the gym. This guy was a lunatic! I walked in his office and with no warning, he stuck a syringe filled with B12 in my arm, pulled it out of my arm and stuck it in my friend’s arm. The same syringe! I was glad he jabbed me first!
He then asked,” What can I do for you”? I asked “would you write me a script for Anavar and Winstrol”? (Two of the least toxic oral steroids).
He responded “That's it? Here, look through my book and this list.”
I ended up walking out with a stack of scripts. In the early 80’s steroids were inexpensive and available at most pharmacies. 100 – 2.5 mg Anavar were $14.
The first day I took steroids I was absolutely terrified! I started with it dose so low, most mice wouldn't kick off it. My first cycle consisted of 1 – 2.5 mg. Anavar per day. I told almost no one that I was on juice. Prior to cycling I was the same strength as my training partner who was juiced to the gills. We were both benching 370. The fourth week into my minuscule cycle I started to kick. During a chest workout I told my training partner I wanted to go for a max. He said, “You barely got 370 last week, there's no way you’re going to do more weight now.”
I put 380 on the bar and it went up like nothing. Then 385. Then 390. Then 395!
He was floored! He yelled, “You’re on juice!”
I replied, “No I’m not, it’s Shift Amino Acids.” Shift was an amino powder that mixed like sand in water. Soon half the gym was buying cases of the stuff. One friend of mine claims he still has a couple cases in his garage to this day.
Quality natural supplements, proper nutrition and information about steroids weren’t available back then.
If I knew then what I know now, I never would have tried steroids.
I had trained very intensely for four years without any drugs or supplements. Once I began cycling steroids I upped the intensity by 1000%! My current training partner was more interested in cracking jokes than getting in the zone I was in. I started working out with a freak who was 5'5" 240 and he treated every set like a life or death struggle like I did. We both started packing on mass and getting freaky strong working out together, we were doing forced reps on every set.
I did a few more cycles of Anavar and Winstrol. I would go on for 6 weeks and off for 6 weeks. I was growing like a weed and loved the transformation to my physique.
I entered my first bodybuilding competition on Anavar. The contest had an All-Star legendary judging panel including Danny Padilla, Robby Robinson and Mike Katz. After prejudging, a couple of the judges told me I looked great, I was psyched! I ended up winning my class. Finally after 3 years of taking 5th or 6th place, I won my class. I competed in 2 more contests a few weeks later and I took first in one and second in the other.
I tapered off the Anavar and stayed clean for the entire summer. I continued this pattern of staying off juice during the summer to clean out my receptor sites for years to come. I would stay off everything from June to January.
The following January I tried injectables for the first time - 200 mg. of Testosterone Enanthate. I drove 60 miles to a doctor's office once a week. 3 weeks in to the cycle it was snowing heavy so I was unable to drive to his office. I tried pushing 22 gauge, inch and a half needle against my right glute and it slid right in. I said to myself, "I've been driving to East Cupcake for this?" "This is easy!" I started injecting myself. I would start with 1cc of Test (200 mgs.) for 3 weeks and then added 1cc of Deca Durabolin (200 mgs) for 3 weeks. I increased my intensity even more. I got really strong. I was benching 500 and squatting 700 for reps. I used to love the attention I got when I was pushing massive amounts of weights, especially in front of power lifters who claimed bodybuilders were weak and all show and no go. I was doing 405 for reps on the incline, close grip bench 315 for 21, squatting 600 for 10 to the floor with my feet together without a belt or raps. I used so much weight on the hack squat machine, one day the bolts that lagged it to the floor snapped.
I continued cycling with injectables, 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. I usually used 1 Androgen (Test Enanthate) and 1 or 2 anabolics (Deca & Primobolan Depot). I tried a 6 week cycle once with a lot of different steroids for 6 weeks. I didn't gain any more strength or size on that cycle. I felt nauseous all the time; I was like a toxic waste dump. After that experiment I went back to my usual cycle.
I started winning every contest I'd enter. As usual, I'd totally go off steroids from June until January to totally clean out. I'm glad I did so because my body is still able to make it's own testosterone unlike so many others I knew who stayed on for years at a time. Their testicles are gone forever, they disrupted their metabolic pathways permanently and now they have to wear a patch or inject Test for life!
I used much less stuff than most of the guys I knew. My SGOT liver enzymes never went over 50, while other guy's SGOTs would go over 600. I also took silymarin (milk thistle) when I was on to help detoxify my liver. I also never took toxic orals like Dianabol, Anadrol or Halotestin. I remember a doctor I spoke with about anabolic steroids back then said "if you want to get big use injectables, if you want liver tumors use orals"
I knew guys that would inject 2400 mgs of Test at a time, that's 12cc's! They'd have 4 - 3 cc syringes lined up, inject the Test, unscrew the syringe, screw in the next one, inject that and so on. These are the same guys that would almost never get off and when they did get off, they wouldn't train at all. I trained with lots of intensity when I was off, I never missed a workout. I would always tell myself I was going to take time off after contests but I never did.
I remember my mother, who didn't know I was using steroids tell me, "don't ever take steroids because look what happened to Derrik Sanderson, he had to have his hips replaced." I responded, "hips replaced, like I'd ever need that.”
When I got off juice for the summer that's when I would really feel the strain I was putting on my body, steroids had pain masking property to them.
I remember in the midst of a cycle waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I could never sleep through the night without getting up a few times when I was on. Everything was quiet and dark and I'd say to myself, "what the hell are you doing to yourself?"
After each cycle I would be in more and more pain when I was off. I started taking 1 or 2 over the counter anti-inflammatories like Advil when I was really stiff.
During my next cycle I tried something that was supposedly the missing link to getting huge: Human growth hormone. It wasn't the synthetic stuff that's available today. This was real growth hormone from the pituitaries of cadavers. It cost me a lot of money and I purchased it from a pharmacy with a prescription so I knew it was definitely real. I was psyched to start. While I was on it I didn't notice anything positive. I wasn't getting any stronger, bigger, or more cut from it. Five weeks in to the cycle something happened. I had severe arythmia one morning. My heart was barely beating then it was beating at 150 bpm. My friend came over to pick me up to train. I had him listen to my heart through the stethoscope. He listened and said "what?" it's beating, let's go train!"
I said "It's beating but I don't think it's supposed to be doing a Neil Pert drum solo."
I went to the hospital and the cardiologist informed me that my right atrium wasn't working properly. He wanted to give me the paddles to try to jump start it in to working, but it started working again on its own after a while. He asked me if I was on anything, I told him I was and he replied, "I hope you don't think you're going to get out of this scot free, there will most likely be repercussions down the road." No truer words have ever been spoken.
Literally the day after I went to the hospital I picked up Time magazine and there was an article on Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease which can be contracted by taking human growth hormone and it can take up to 20 years to manifest itself. Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease is human mad cow disease. It took hundreds of pituitaries to make up one batch of human growth hormone.
After the hospital episode and the enlightening Time article I started contemplating pulling the rip cord on my bodybuilding career.
I tapered off everything, entered a contest and still won even though I was clean for 8 weeks. I stayed clean for the entire summer as I'd done since I'd started cycling 2 years earlier.
As time went on I was feeling stiffer and stiffer. My shoulders hurt so much I had to stop flat benching and hips and back were so bad I had to stop squatting. I knew I was finished with competition forever. I kept training by working around my injuries. I would only perform exercises that wouldn't aggravate my injuries, I used mainly machines.
I wasn't pushing the amount of weight I used to. I was working around injuries. I was off the juice. I started losing weight. Now, instead of weighing 220 I weighed 190 but I still looked ok. I got in the habit of taking an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory or two a day. One day I ran out so I didn't take any for a couple days. I felt so stiff I could barely move! Back then, I didn't know what I know now about sed rate. I thought I was getting addicted to Advil. I went without it because I couldn't bare the thought of "having" to stay on something to feel decent. I got worse, felt nauseous, didn't want to eat, I lost more weight. I then figured I had osteo arthritis from all the pounding my joints took. I tried every natural remedy known to treat osteo arthritis. I first tried shark cartilage. All that gave me was kidney stones - I was urinating out stones the size of peas. They looked like gold nuggets but they weren't worth $500 an ounce. I tried acupuncture, acupressure, DMSO, ems, nothing worked. Then I tried something really radical, bee venom therapy. I got stung by 20 bees a day down my spine for 6 months straight. I had my girl friend catch the bees with tweezers from the jar and then make the bees sting me on certain trigger points. I wonder why she bolted. Nothing worked. Finally a chiropractor looked at an x-ray and noticed that my SI joints were fused together. This is a sign of ankylosing spondilytis (a form of rheumatoid arthritis) which can be brought on by trauma. God knows I've had enough traumas!
I went to see a rheumatologist who prescribed Ansaid and Azulfidine. They gave me some relief but later the Ansaid was giving me bleeding ulcers so I had to stop that. I switched to a drug which is virtually identical to Vioxx which was pulled off shelves because of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I'm also on Enbrel which can have serious side effects. I was prescribed 1 cc twice a week. I take 1/4 of a cc every two weeks. Even though I take such a low dose I still experience crippling migraines, nausea, numbness, feeling of pins & needles and vertigo. For years I wouldn't tell anyone who didn't know me well, that I had anything wrong with me. I'd meet a friend of a friend and they'd ask, "Do you have a stiff neck?" They'd ask this because I have no range of motion in my neck now.
I'd reply, "Yeah, I pulled it doing shrugs."
I would bump in to them a year later and they'd ask, "Your neck's still stiff?"
"Yeah, I keep pulling it."
If I don't take anything for my illness, please know that I'm in so much pain I don't want to live. If I take prescriptions I have less stiffness but I suffer numerous side effects like migraines, vertigo, pins and needles & numbness in my arms and legs, nausea and they're so dangerous I may die from the long term side effects. It's become a vicious cycle.
The real irony is in the fact that I've helped numerous people with their diets and ailments over the years but naturally I can't cure myself. I'm no longer pumping iron, I'm pumping irony.
When I was cycling, I used to humor myself by asking "If steroids are so bad, where are the bodies?" At that time I didn't hear stories about too many people that had serious health problems or any that died from steroids. It turns out the problems take years to manifest and many die prematurely, in their 30's, 40's or 50's instead of their 60's, 70's or 80's. The following are but a few of the many:
· Sonny Schmidt died at 46 · Scott Klein died at 30 · Ron Teufel died at 45 · Dan Duchaine died at 48 · Mohammed Benaziza died at 28 · Andreas Munzer died at 30 · Mike Mentzer died at 49 · Ray Mentzer died at 47 · Don Ross died at 55 · Dr. John Tristany died · Don Peters died · Ray Raridon died · Dennis Newman (leukemia) · Orville Burke (coma) · Don Long (kidney failure) · Tom Prince (kidney failure) · Flex Wheeler (kidney transplant) · Tom Prince (kidney failure) · Ed Corney (stroke) · Boyer Coe (heart) · Danny Padilla (heart) · Pete Grymkowski (heart) · Mike Martarazzo 39 (triple bypass heart surgery)
The average US citizen lives to be 77.2 years old. The average citizen doesn't eat right or exercise enough, that's why the obesity rate is at the highest it's ever been. Athletes, especially bodybuilders eat great and exercise a lot. Why are so many dying 20, 30 or even 40 years sooner than the average couch potato?
Could it be the Steroids Vicious Cycle?
Story 2
What Anabolic Steroids Did For MePresented by: Matt Alavi (short version)
I started lifting weights quite heavily at age 18 after my senior year in high school. I was 5’9 weighed about 155lbs and was about 9% body fat. I was a baseball player throughout high school, which kept me in pretty good shape.
After graduation, I quit baseball and decided to make weight lifting a full-time affair. I started reading Muscle Media 2000, a magazine geared towards “muscle heads” which soon became my bible. Lifting became quite an obsession; ditched work, skipped classes (college), blew off friends, all to eat and lift! I was very dedicated and determined to get big and strong just like all the guys in the muscle mag’s. Hell, these guys had the chicks, money and drove cool cars right! Big muscles are a sign of power! I knew that I had the potential to have the power! My magazines instructed me on how to eat, sleep, which supplements I “need” to take and how to train.
At the end of my 19th year, I weighed about 190lbs lean. I was benching over 280lbs for reps, and was shoulder shrugging about 500lbs, which I thought was pretty good at the time. Creatine started becoming very popular at my gym and MM 2000 raved about it! I immediately went out and bought a bottle. I took creatine and some aminos for a while on and off, and by age 20, I broke 200lbs, and my strength gains were still climbing. Here I started to develop a small belly, due to all the domestic beer and eating every two hours, I suppose.
I made a pact with myself, I would get up to 210lbs and then stop there. Well at 215lbs, I said only five more pounds and a hundred more on bench and I’ll be satisfied. However, at this time it was too late, I was going up fast, and nothing could stop me! I was convinced with the help from my magazine buddies, that I could not afford to lose any muscle. I spent so much time building it, there’s no way I’m going to lose it! Pretty soon I was given the nick name Girth. Then at age 22 and 260lbs, people referred to me as ‘little Dorian”, claimed from the monster pro bodybuilder Dorian Yates.
I became a power-lifter between age 20 and 22. I was lifting more weight and was bigger than most guys in the gym, including the ones on roids. I was huge, but I didn’t look the way I wanted to look. I wanted to be ripped. I still looked small in the mirror and felt a bit inferior. I was stronger than most everyone around me, benching close to 500lbs, squatting about 800lbs, and leg pressing the sled loaded with plates and a 150lb kid standing on the top!! Yeah, did it all with the help of just creatine, aminos, protein shakes, weight gainers, HMB, various other supplements, a whole lot of hard work, and lots of food! But now it was time to get ripped! Around this time a bunch of Ephedra based weight loss products started becoming popular. Products like Metaform Heat, Ultimate Orange, and the new one – Hydroxycut, all were being raved about in all the muscle mags. Man oh man, that Metaform Heat was powerful, before they took it off the market five times! That stuff made me fly through my workouts!
I took some of these “cutters” for a few months. Hey, they were all natural! They can’t be that bad!
After strict dieting, training and months of herbal speed, I was almost ripped at 210lbs, with very little body fat. I felt like crap though. I was pretty over-trained and too dehydrated from all the dieting.
Damn it! Everyone around me was “juicing” and not training half as hard as me. My roommate and all my other gym comrades were all ripped and doing it with ease! All the magazines and roid head writers glorified the power of steroids. “Roids will give any person the edge they are looking for”. If the juice is done right, you can have the body of your dreams. Hey, the pro athletes that I knew, were doing it, and they were achieving stardom! I wanted to experience the power of the “juice”. Just a little boost, and I’ll be fine.
One early evening I took my first shot of Testosterone Suspension, at age 23 and 210lbs lean. The next morning I was about 213lbs, and a lot leaner! How the hell is that possible! My muscles were so much harder, and I looked more cut up! I immediately went to the gym and had a fantastic workout. I felt great! Just in one day. This being, because Test Suspension is water based which gets into the system quickly.
I became convinced and determined at that moment, that I would complete a cycle of steroids. Continuation of my cycle consisted of ditching the Suspension, and replacing it with Testosterone Cypionate, Testosterone Enanthate, Deca, Primobolan, Novadex and Clenbeuterol, all staggered within a four month period. I went from 213lbs to 225lbs, ripped, I mean ripped! My strength and size went through the roof. Although I never got as strong as when I was 260lbs.
My muscles were tearing my workout shirts! I was never sore, and my joints felt great! I had a muscle pump all the time, and my workouts were cake! The owner of the gym I trained at asked if he could sponsor me for the upcoming Powerhouse Classic bodybuilding competition. I said yes.
Then something weird started to happen. The power I had achieved, the power that I spent thousands of dollars and years trying to achieve just freaking took over! I became a sort of monster. Everything pissed me off, my dog, family, friends, TV, everything! I broke things, everything. I was so damn powerful. I could throw anyone around. No one could mess with me! I hated everything. Anger and destruction took over.
I looked around one day in the gym, and I saw what I had been blinded to before. Almost everyone in the gym was using steroids. The girls the guys, the freaking kids! And they all looked like crap! My roid buddies all were messed up physically and mentally. They were abusive in their relationships, abused alcohol and drugs, were extremely paranoid, had no conscience when it came to selling steroids to teens, and had all sorts of health problems. I looked around, for the first time in my gym life, I really looked around.
My God, I was becoming just like everyone else. I faced myself in the mirror and saw a person I didn’t know. I felt like crap, mentally and physically. I had to stop using steroids right then and there. I did.
I started to lose weight and strength rapidly. Every joint in my body hurt bad. My appetite was gone. Patches of hair were left on my pillow. I consulted my “friends”; most of their words of wisdom had to do with taking more steroids. Yeah right. One buddy just starting his third cycle in the same year said “dude, you just gotta stay on the juice!” He is no longer around by the way.
I stopped using roids in late July of 1998 at 225lbs. By November of 1998 I had lost about 15lbs and looked a bit fatter. I had my brother take some pic’s of me at this time because I knew that I would never look that way again. I felt horrible. By January of 1999 I had lost so much strength and weighed 185lbs. By April of 1999 I weighed 170lbs, and could barely look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t train, sleep, eat or do anything for that matter. My eyes were sunken in my head, my skin looked like it was falling off my bones, my body hurt terribly, and I was horribly depressed.
What the hell happened to me!! That power that I once had, remember, the power that I spent my freaking life and life savings trying to achieve, was ripped from me completely, plus some! I had no strength or vitality left in me at all, and I was only 24 freaking years old! All the damn roid head writers or know it all roid users had no answers for me now! They told me what damn supplements to take and what steroids are the best, but what about when you get sick. What happens when the god damned steroids kill you. What do you take then? None of these bastards have any answers or are willing to help now.
In April of 2000 I weighed 163lbs was 5’7, yes two inches shorter, and surprises just kept on coming. Now, not only did I have no strength, couldn’t digest food, had pains all over my body, was consumed by depression, had constant thoughts of suicide, and continued to lose weight, but now my skin looked yellow, there were muscle twitches all over my body, and I couldn’t sleep more than 2 hours a night! Oh yeah, my hormone levels were basically non-existent.
By the end of February 2001 I had visited over a dozen doctors and spent thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to get my body back to some sort of normalcy. Nothing and nobody would help me.
Finally, in 2003, after seeking out every medical, non-medical, and self treatment I could, I started to regain some energy. I began to attempt to exercise again. Once a week, then twice and up to three times per week. Every workout was painfully horrible. I would periodically have bouts of weight loss, digestive problems and pain that would limit me from exercising or doing day- to- day activities, but I pushed myself. I still push myself, everyday. And I still have muscle twitches, weight fluctuations, and pains. My liver has a cyst on it, is painful sometimes, and my digestion is way out of whack. The list goes on.
I guess I’m lucky. Some of my friends are in jail, look worse and feel worse than I do, and some aren’t around anymore to discuss their mistakes, or waste their time writing stories like this one.
In my quest to get healthy again, I began my studies of the endocrine system, medicine, and everything there is to know about steroids. My studies lead me down a different path, which has shown me how lucky I really am, to know what I know now. However, there is not a day that goes by that I wish I never made that mistake of using steroids. Not ONE day!
Passage 03/08/2005: This is a short version of a story I wrote in 2003, a few years after doing steroids. Several things have been left out due to protecting privacy of others, and explicit content. This story is just a brief overview of what four months of steroids did for me.
Anabolic steroids gave me strength, muscles, power, rage, depression, false sense of confidence, hair loss, and so on. What they took from me; my life as I knew it and what it could have been. It stole my youth, health, natural genetic potential, money, pride, confidence, and left me with side effects that I have battled with for over 7 years. Great deal, uh. Wow, four months of roids for seven years of pain!!!
I hope to God, that the youth of today do not mimic the mistakes of the pro athletes ahead of them, who use drugs in order to pursue stardom. Instead strive for innate excellence and excellence shall be achieved indefinitely, use drugs to achieve excellence and excellence will only be achieved using drugs; which will surely end in destruction of the athlete.
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Strory 1
If I knew then what I know now...Presented by: Todd Ganci
I grew up in a big family; I was the third of five kids, three girls and two boys. My father met my mother during World War II. My father was a Captain in the Army and my mother was a nurse in Germany.
My mother was, and is, a very hard worker. She's still into gardening and landscaping in her 70's. When she was in her fifties she leveled a huge hill in our back yard with a shovel. It was a hill large enough to take a bulldozer half a day to flatten; it took her the entire spring and summer. When I was a kid, she worked as a registered nurse, kept the lawn landscaped and manicured like something you'd see in Better Homes & Gardens. She always had great home-cooked meals on the table.
My father was an incredible athlete who made the Hall of Fame in high school football. He played pro baseball for awhile until he got hurt. He later ran marathons in to his 60s. He had me throwing a baseball when I was three years old. I remember playing eight-year-old Hash and pitching entire games without throwing a ball or allowing anyone to get a foul tip. Every inning was over in nine pitches. I played and loved many different sports. I was smaller in stature than other kids my age but I was always very strong for my size.
My brother, who was 4 years older than me, started hanging with the wrong crowd and began drinking and drugging at an early age. I remember seeing him drunk when I was 12 and he was 16, it shocked and saddened me. He was slurring his words and stumbling when he walked. I decided from that moment on that I wanted no part of drinking and recreational drugging.
I played baseball and hockey throughout high school. I started lifting weights after graduating from high school. I started with a plastic Kmart weight set in my room. I weighed 130 lbs and was bench pressing 150 lbs. Six months later, clueless about nutrition, without any drugs or supplements of any kind, I weighed 145 lbs and was bench pressing 340 lbs. I was working out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, training only upper body. I knew nothing about nutrition, my diet was horrible and it was way before the age of any decent supplements of any kind. All that was available was desiccated liver tablets and clumpy egg protein that tasted like it was formulated on 3 Mile Island!
I entered a few local teen bodybuilding contests. I went in green, white as a sheet and totally oblivious. I didn't realize you had to diet and tan prior to entering bodybuilding contests - - it was ugly. The second contest I entered I was competing against bodybuilders who would later go on to win Mr. Universe.
I entered 3 more contests 100% natural over the next 2 years. I was pretty much the only natural competitor in the contests; it was before the age of drug tested competitions. My best placing at the time was 5th.
I continued training hard, drug-free for a total of four years. Most of the time I was training every day, four hours a day, seven days a week. I was working out at a gym where almost every guy was juiced to the gills. Even though I was 100% natural I was still stronger than most of them. Four years after I began working out I weighed 170 lbs, I was benching 370 and squatting 405 for 10 (all the way to down - not high chair squats). A couple of the guys who were juicing used to razz me calling me Mr. Natural. I used to say stuff like "You guys haven't been clean since the Pilgrims landed,” or “you guys must be helpful around the house breast feeding your baby brothers with that gyno!"
I started training even harder. Eventually I was constantly injured. My body couldn't recover from the intense workouts, over training and lack of nutrition. I got tired of limping around having people ask me “how’s it going old timer?”
I began to contemplate trying steroids, so I starting researching them. One of the books I read was the Underground Steroid Handbook which seemed to promote and glorify the use of steroids. In my opinion, if someone's on the fence about trying steroids reads this book, they'll most likely try them. (One of the author's of the book passed away in 2000 at the age of 48.)
I also ran the idea of steroids by my allergist. He told me I shouldn’t take them because if I ever had an allergy attack, I wouldn’t respond to steroids if they were already in my system. I believe he, like many others, was confusing anabolic steroids (i.e., Testosterone) with catabolic steroids (i.e., Prednisone). I did so much research and read so many conflicting reports, my head was spinning
After researching for close to a year, I finally decided to try steroids. I made an appointment to see a German doctor who wrote scripts for lots of the guys at the gym. This guy was a lunatic! I walked in his office and with no warning, he stuck a syringe filled with B12 in my arm, pulled it out of my arm and stuck it in my friend’s arm. The same syringe! I was glad he jabbed me first!
He then asked,” What can I do for you”? I asked “would you write me a script for Anavar and Winstrol”? (Two of the least toxic oral steroids).
He responded “That's it? Here, look through my book and this list.”
I ended up walking out with a stack of scripts. In the early 80’s steroids were inexpensive and available at most pharmacies. 100 – 2.5 mg Anavar were $14.
The first day I took steroids I was absolutely terrified! I started with it dose so low, most mice wouldn't kick off it. My first cycle consisted of 1 – 2.5 mg. Anavar per day. I told almost no one that I was on juice. Prior to cycling I was the same strength as my training partner who was juiced to the gills. We were both benching 370. The fourth week into my minuscule cycle I started to kick. During a chest workout I told my training partner I wanted to go for a max. He said, “You barely got 370 last week, there's no way you’re going to do more weight now.”
I put 380 on the bar and it went up like nothing. Then 385. Then 390. Then 395!
He was floored! He yelled, “You’re on juice!”
I replied, “No I’m not, it’s Shift Amino Acids.” Shift was an amino powder that mixed like sand in water. Soon half the gym was buying cases of the stuff. One friend of mine claims he still has a couple cases in his garage to this day.
Quality natural supplements, proper nutrition and information about steroids weren’t available back then.
If I knew then what I know now, I never would have tried steroids.
I had trained very intensely for four years without any drugs or supplements. Once I began cycling steroids I upped the intensity by 1000%! My current training partner was more interested in cracking jokes than getting in the zone I was in. I started working out with a freak who was 5'5" 240 and he treated every set like a life or death struggle like I did. We both started packing on mass and getting freaky strong working out together, we were doing forced reps on every set.
I did a few more cycles of Anavar and Winstrol. I would go on for 6 weeks and off for 6 weeks. I was growing like a weed and loved the transformation to my physique.
I entered my first bodybuilding competition on Anavar. The contest had an All-Star legendary judging panel including Danny Padilla, Robby Robinson and Mike Katz. After prejudging, a couple of the judges told me I looked great, I was psyched! I ended up winning my class. Finally after 3 years of taking 5th or 6th place, I won my class. I competed in 2 more contests a few weeks later and I took first in one and second in the other.
I tapered off the Anavar and stayed clean for the entire summer. I continued this pattern of staying off juice during the summer to clean out my receptor sites for years to come. I would stay off everything from June to January.
The following January I tried injectables for the first time - 200 mg. of Testosterone Enanthate. I drove 60 miles to a doctor's office once a week. 3 weeks in to the cycle it was snowing heavy so I was unable to drive to his office. I tried pushing 22 gauge, inch and a half needle against my right glute and it slid right in. I said to myself, "I've been driving to East Cupcake for this?" "This is easy!" I started injecting myself. I would start with 1cc of Test (200 mgs.) for 3 weeks and then added 1cc of Deca Durabolin (200 mgs) for 3 weeks. I increased my intensity even more. I got really strong. I was benching 500 and squatting 700 for reps. I used to love the attention I got when I was pushing massive amounts of weights, especially in front of power lifters who claimed bodybuilders were weak and all show and no go. I was doing 405 for reps on the incline, close grip bench 315 for 21, squatting 600 for 10 to the floor with my feet together without a belt or raps. I used so much weight on the hack squat machine, one day the bolts that lagged it to the floor snapped.
I continued cycling with injectables, 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. I usually used 1 Androgen (Test Enanthate) and 1 or 2 anabolics (Deca & Primobolan Depot). I tried a 6 week cycle once with a lot of different steroids for 6 weeks. I didn't gain any more strength or size on that cycle. I felt nauseous all the time; I was like a toxic waste dump. After that experiment I went back to my usual cycle.
I started winning every contest I'd enter. As usual, I'd totally go off steroids from June until January to totally clean out. I'm glad I did so because my body is still able to make it's own testosterone unlike so many others I knew who stayed on for years at a time. Their testicles are gone forever, they disrupted their metabolic pathways permanently and now they have to wear a patch or inject Test for life!
I used much less stuff than most of the guys I knew. My SGOT liver enzymes never went over 50, while other guy's SGOTs would go over 600. I also took silymarin (milk thistle) when I was on to help detoxify my liver. I also never took toxic orals like Dianabol, Anadrol or Halotestin. I remember a doctor I spoke with about anabolic steroids back then said "if you want to get big use injectables, if you want liver tumors use orals"
I knew guys that would inject 2400 mgs of Test at a time, that's 12cc's! They'd have 4 - 3 cc syringes lined up, inject the Test, unscrew the syringe, screw in the next one, inject that and so on. These are the same guys that would almost never get off and when they did get off, they wouldn't train at all. I trained with lots of intensity when I was off, I never missed a workout. I would always tell myself I was going to take time off after contests but I never did.
I remember my mother, who didn't know I was using steroids tell me, "don't ever take steroids because look what happened to Derrik Sanderson, he had to have his hips replaced." I responded, "hips replaced, like I'd ever need that.”
When I got off juice for the summer that's when I would really feel the strain I was putting on my body, steroids had pain masking property to them.
I remember in the midst of a cycle waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I could never sleep through the night without getting up a few times when I was on. Everything was quiet and dark and I'd say to myself, "what the hell are you doing to yourself?"
After each cycle I would be in more and more pain when I was off. I started taking 1 or 2 over the counter anti-inflammatories like Advil when I was really stiff.
During my next cycle I tried something that was supposedly the missing link to getting huge: Human growth hormone. It wasn't the synthetic stuff that's available today. This was real growth hormone from the pituitaries of cadavers. It cost me a lot of money and I purchased it from a pharmacy with a prescription so I knew it was definitely real. I was psyched to start. While I was on it I didn't notice anything positive. I wasn't getting any stronger, bigger, or more cut from it. Five weeks in to the cycle something happened. I had severe arythmia one morning. My heart was barely beating then it was beating at 150 bpm. My friend came over to pick me up to train. I had him listen to my heart through the stethoscope. He listened and said "what?" it's beating, let's go train!"
I said "It's beating but I don't think it's supposed to be doing a Neil Pert drum solo."
I went to the hospital and the cardiologist informed me that my right atrium wasn't working properly. He wanted to give me the paddles to try to jump start it in to working, but it started working again on its own after a while. He asked me if I was on anything, I told him I was and he replied, "I hope you don't think you're going to get out of this scot free, there will most likely be repercussions down the road." No truer words have ever been spoken.
Literally the day after I went to the hospital I picked up Time magazine and there was an article on Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease which can be contracted by taking human growth hormone and it can take up to 20 years to manifest itself. Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease is human mad cow disease. It took hundreds of pituitaries to make up one batch of human growth hormone.
After the hospital episode and the enlightening Time article I started contemplating pulling the rip cord on my bodybuilding career.
I tapered off everything, entered a contest and still won even though I was clean for 8 weeks. I stayed clean for the entire summer as I'd done since I'd started cycling 2 years earlier.
As time went on I was feeling stiffer and stiffer. My shoulders hurt so much I had to stop flat benching and hips and back were so bad I had to stop squatting. I knew I was finished with competition forever. I kept training by working around my injuries. I would only perform exercises that wouldn't aggravate my injuries, I used mainly machines.
I wasn't pushing the amount of weight I used to. I was working around injuries. I was off the juice. I started losing weight. Now, instead of weighing 220 I weighed 190 but I still looked ok. I got in the habit of taking an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory or two a day. One day I ran out so I didn't take any for a couple days. I felt so stiff I could barely move! Back then, I didn't know what I know now about sed rate. I thought I was getting addicted to Advil. I went without it because I couldn't bare the thought of "having" to stay on something to feel decent. I got worse, felt nauseous, didn't want to eat, I lost more weight. I then figured I had osteo arthritis from all the pounding my joints took. I tried every natural remedy known to treat osteo arthritis. I first tried shark cartilage. All that gave me was kidney stones - I was urinating out stones the size of peas. They looked like gold nuggets but they weren't worth $500 an ounce. I tried acupuncture, acupressure, DMSO, ems, nothing worked. Then I tried something really radical, bee venom therapy. I got stung by 20 bees a day down my spine for 6 months straight. I had my girl friend catch the bees with tweezers from the jar and then make the bees sting me on certain trigger points. I wonder why she bolted. Nothing worked. Finally a chiropractor looked at an x-ray and noticed that my SI joints were fused together. This is a sign of ankylosing spondilytis (a form of rheumatoid arthritis) which can be brought on by trauma. God knows I've had enough traumas!
I went to see a rheumatologist who prescribed Ansaid and Azulfidine. They gave me some relief but later the Ansaid was giving me bleeding ulcers so I had to stop that. I switched to a drug which is virtually identical to Vioxx which was pulled off shelves because of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I'm also on Enbrel which can have serious side effects. I was prescribed 1 cc twice a week. I take 1/4 of a cc every two weeks. Even though I take such a low dose I still experience crippling migraines, nausea, numbness, feeling of pins & needles and vertigo. For years I wouldn't tell anyone who didn't know me well, that I had anything wrong with me. I'd meet a friend of a friend and they'd ask, "Do you have a stiff neck?" They'd ask this because I have no range of motion in my neck now.
I'd reply, "Yeah, I pulled it doing shrugs."
I would bump in to them a year later and they'd ask, "Your neck's still stiff?"
"Yeah, I keep pulling it."
If I don't take anything for my illness, please know that I'm in so much pain I don't want to live. If I take prescriptions I have less stiffness but I suffer numerous side effects like migraines, vertigo, pins and needles & numbness in my arms and legs, nausea and they're so dangerous I may die from the long term side effects. It's become a vicious cycle.
The real irony is in the fact that I've helped numerous people with their diets and ailments over the years but naturally I can't cure myself. I'm no longer pumping iron, I'm pumping irony.
When I was cycling, I used to humor myself by asking "If steroids are so bad, where are the bodies?" At that time I didn't hear stories about too many people that had serious health problems or any that died from steroids. It turns out the problems take years to manifest and many die prematurely, in their 30's, 40's or 50's instead of their 60's, 70's or 80's. The following are but a few of the many:
· Sonny Schmidt died at 46 · Scott Klein died at 30 · Ron Teufel died at 45 · Dan Duchaine died at 48 · Mohammed Benaziza died at 28 · Andreas Munzer died at 30 · Mike Mentzer died at 49 · Ray Mentzer died at 47 · Don Ross died at 55 · Dr. John Tristany died · Don Peters died · Ray Raridon died · Dennis Newman (leukemia) · Orville Burke (coma) · Don Long (kidney failure) · Tom Prince (kidney failure) · Flex Wheeler (kidney transplant) · Tom Prince (kidney failure) · Ed Corney (stroke) · Boyer Coe (heart) · Danny Padilla (heart) · Pete Grymkowski (heart) · Mike Martarazzo 39 (triple bypass heart surgery)
The average US citizen lives to be 77.2 years old. The average citizen doesn't eat right or exercise enough, that's why the obesity rate is at the highest it's ever been. Athletes, especially bodybuilders eat great and exercise a lot. Why are so many dying 20, 30 or even 40 years sooner than the average couch potato?
Could it be the Steroids Vicious Cycle?
Story 2
What Anabolic Steroids Did For MePresented by: Matt Alavi (short version)
I started lifting weights quite heavily at age 18 after my senior year in high school. I was 5’9 weighed about 155lbs and was about 9% body fat. I was a baseball player throughout high school, which kept me in pretty good shape.
After graduation, I quit baseball and decided to make weight lifting a full-time affair. I started reading Muscle Media 2000, a magazine geared towards “muscle heads” which soon became my bible. Lifting became quite an obsession; ditched work, skipped classes (college), blew off friends, all to eat and lift! I was very dedicated and determined to get big and strong just like all the guys in the muscle mag’s. Hell, these guys had the chicks, money and drove cool cars right! Big muscles are a sign of power! I knew that I had the potential to have the power! My magazines instructed me on how to eat, sleep, which supplements I “need” to take and how to train.
At the end of my 19th year, I weighed about 190lbs lean. I was benching over 280lbs for reps, and was shoulder shrugging about 500lbs, which I thought was pretty good at the time. Creatine started becoming very popular at my gym and MM 2000 raved about it! I immediately went out and bought a bottle. I took creatine and some aminos for a while on and off, and by age 20, I broke 200lbs, and my strength gains were still climbing. Here I started to develop a small belly, due to all the domestic beer and eating every two hours, I suppose.
I made a pact with myself, I would get up to 210lbs and then stop there. Well at 215lbs, I said only five more pounds and a hundred more on bench and I’ll be satisfied. However, at this time it was too late, I was going up fast, and nothing could stop me! I was convinced with the help from my magazine buddies, that I could not afford to lose any muscle. I spent so much time building it, there’s no way I’m going to lose it! Pretty soon I was given the nick name Girth. Then at age 22 and 260lbs, people referred to me as ‘little Dorian”, claimed from the monster pro bodybuilder Dorian Yates.
I became a power-lifter between age 20 and 22. I was lifting more weight and was bigger than most guys in the gym, including the ones on roids. I was huge, but I didn’t look the way I wanted to look. I wanted to be ripped. I still looked small in the mirror and felt a bit inferior. I was stronger than most everyone around me, benching close to 500lbs, squatting about 800lbs, and leg pressing the sled loaded with plates and a 150lb kid standing on the top!! Yeah, did it all with the help of just creatine, aminos, protein shakes, weight gainers, HMB, various other supplements, a whole lot of hard work, and lots of food! But now it was time to get ripped! Around this time a bunch of Ephedra based weight loss products started becoming popular. Products like Metaform Heat, Ultimate Orange, and the new one – Hydroxycut, all were being raved about in all the muscle mags. Man oh man, that Metaform Heat was powerful, before they took it off the market five times! That stuff made me fly through my workouts!
I took some of these “cutters” for a few months. Hey, they were all natural! They can’t be that bad!
After strict dieting, training and months of herbal speed, I was almost ripped at 210lbs, with very little body fat. I felt like crap though. I was pretty over-trained and too dehydrated from all the dieting.
Damn it! Everyone around me was “juicing” and not training half as hard as me. My roommate and all my other gym comrades were all ripped and doing it with ease! All the magazines and roid head writers glorified the power of steroids. “Roids will give any person the edge they are looking for”. If the juice is done right, you can have the body of your dreams. Hey, the pro athletes that I knew, were doing it, and they were achieving stardom! I wanted to experience the power of the “juice”. Just a little boost, and I’ll be fine.
One early evening I took my first shot of Testosterone Suspension, at age 23 and 210lbs lean. The next morning I was about 213lbs, and a lot leaner! How the hell is that possible! My muscles were so much harder, and I looked more cut up! I immediately went to the gym and had a fantastic workout. I felt great! Just in one day. This being, because Test Suspension is water based which gets into the system quickly.
I became convinced and determined at that moment, that I would complete a cycle of steroids. Continuation of my cycle consisted of ditching the Suspension, and replacing it with Testosterone Cypionate, Testosterone Enanthate, Deca, Primobolan, Novadex and Clenbeuterol, all staggered within a four month period. I went from 213lbs to 225lbs, ripped, I mean ripped! My strength and size went through the roof. Although I never got as strong as when I was 260lbs.
My muscles were tearing my workout shirts! I was never sore, and my joints felt great! I had a muscle pump all the time, and my workouts were cake! The owner of the gym I trained at asked if he could sponsor me for the upcoming Powerhouse Classic bodybuilding competition. I said yes.
Then something weird started to happen. The power I had achieved, the power that I spent thousands of dollars and years trying to achieve just freaking took over! I became a sort of monster. Everything pissed me off, my dog, family, friends, TV, everything! I broke things, everything. I was so damn powerful. I could throw anyone around. No one could mess with me! I hated everything. Anger and destruction took over.
I looked around one day in the gym, and I saw what I had been blinded to before. Almost everyone in the gym was using steroids. The girls the guys, the freaking kids! And they all looked like crap! My roid buddies all were messed up physically and mentally. They were abusive in their relationships, abused alcohol and drugs, were extremely paranoid, had no conscience when it came to selling steroids to teens, and had all sorts of health problems. I looked around, for the first time in my gym life, I really looked around.
My God, I was becoming just like everyone else. I faced myself in the mirror and saw a person I didn’t know. I felt like crap, mentally and physically. I had to stop using steroids right then and there. I did.
I started to lose weight and strength rapidly. Every joint in my body hurt bad. My appetite was gone. Patches of hair were left on my pillow. I consulted my “friends”; most of their words of wisdom had to do with taking more steroids. Yeah right. One buddy just starting his third cycle in the same year said “dude, you just gotta stay on the juice!” He is no longer around by the way.
I stopped using roids in late July of 1998 at 225lbs. By November of 1998 I had lost about 15lbs and looked a bit fatter. I had my brother take some pic’s of me at this time because I knew that I would never look that way again. I felt horrible. By January of 1999 I had lost so much strength and weighed 185lbs. By April of 1999 I weighed 170lbs, and could barely look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t train, sleep, eat or do anything for that matter. My eyes were sunken in my head, my skin looked like it was falling off my bones, my body hurt terribly, and I was horribly depressed.
What the hell happened to me!! That power that I once had, remember, the power that I spent my freaking life and life savings trying to achieve, was ripped from me completely, plus some! I had no strength or vitality left in me at all, and I was only 24 freaking years old! All the damn roid head writers or know it all roid users had no answers for me now! They told me what damn supplements to take and what steroids are the best, but what about when you get sick. What happens when the god damned steroids kill you. What do you take then? None of these bastards have any answers or are willing to help now.
In April of 2000 I weighed 163lbs was 5’7, yes two inches shorter, and surprises just kept on coming. Now, not only did I have no strength, couldn’t digest food, had pains all over my body, was consumed by depression, had constant thoughts of suicide, and continued to lose weight, but now my skin looked yellow, there were muscle twitches all over my body, and I couldn’t sleep more than 2 hours a night! Oh yeah, my hormone levels were basically non-existent.
By the end of February 2001 I had visited over a dozen doctors and spent thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to get my body back to some sort of normalcy. Nothing and nobody would help me.
Finally, in 2003, after seeking out every medical, non-medical, and self treatment I could, I started to regain some energy. I began to attempt to exercise again. Once a week, then twice and up to three times per week. Every workout was painfully horrible. I would periodically have bouts of weight loss, digestive problems and pain that would limit me from exercising or doing day- to- day activities, but I pushed myself. I still push myself, everyday. And I still have muscle twitches, weight fluctuations, and pains. My liver has a cyst on it, is painful sometimes, and my digestion is way out of whack. The list goes on.
I guess I’m lucky. Some of my friends are in jail, look worse and feel worse than I do, and some aren’t around anymore to discuss their mistakes, or waste their time writing stories like this one.
In my quest to get healthy again, I began my studies of the endocrine system, medicine, and everything there is to know about steroids. My studies lead me down a different path, which has shown me how lucky I really am, to know what I know now. However, there is not a day that goes by that I wish I never made that mistake of using steroids. Not ONE day!
Passage 03/08/2005: This is a short version of a story I wrote in 2003, a few years after doing steroids. Several things have been left out due to protecting privacy of others, and explicit content. This story is just a brief overview of what four months of steroids did for me.
Anabolic steroids gave me strength, muscles, power, rage, depression, false sense of confidence, hair loss, and so on. What they took from me; my life as I knew it and what it could have been. It stole my youth, health, natural genetic potential, money, pride, confidence, and left me with side effects that I have battled with for over 7 years. Great deal, uh. Wow, four months of roids for seven years of pain!!!
I hope to God, that the youth of today do not mimic the mistakes of the pro athletes ahead of them, who use drugs in order to pursue stardom. Instead strive for innate excellence and excellence shall be achieved indefinitely, use drugs to achieve excellence and excellence will only be achieved using drugs; which will surely end in destruction of the athlete.
Dallas News Guest Book Taylor Hooton
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