Final: Essay

My debate on steroids and athletes over this project has brought me across many different articles and information that has educated me alot on the subject. The best thing I got out of my project was my book Gym Candy, by Carl Deuker. It was good to relate to the book because it was on football and all the pressure that comes with the sport to be the best. My second favorite would be going to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Mostly because right when I got there I became best friends with Herb Mcbride which is an elderly man from Trussville who was hooking me up with all sorts of brochures and even introduced me to a Olympic gold medalist winner. All the research was interesting and I'm glad I picked this subject.

The part I wish I did differently would be researching more on up to date athletes using steroids. For example, recently the 2009 NFL rookie of the year Brian Cushing, was caught using anabolic steroids and I didn't get to write about him. Also I didn't talk about the baseball players that were in the trials on using steroids.

I learned many things by looking at all the facts, stories, and videos; they all lead to one thing. Using steroids and being an athlete is a bad thing. They will boost your performance no doubt but the risk and shame of being a "cheater" is way too high. All athletes should stay to the all natural route and be on the safe side.

Visit to Alabama Sports Hall of Fame

I visited the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame to see if athletes that used steroids were in it. I found out quickly that athletes who used steroids were not in it at all. At least that people know of, no athletes in it ever used them. However on my visit I took in some knowledge about sports and how they were played back in the day. I got to the museum and started walking around looking at different spots with different athletes. It was interesting to see how many people were from Alabama that did so much in sports. I met a guy named Herb Mcbride and he started talking to me about the different things they had and said he lived in Trussville too. He even said he was Donovan's neighbor which I thought was kind of ironic since Donovan's in the same class I'm there for. I toured the place and read many articles and looked at the different exhibits they had. I looked at many different athletes such as: Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson, Heisman trophy winners for Auburn in 1971 and 1985, Willie May's and Hank Aaron which are legendary African American baseball players, Joe Louis, a.k.a. the Brown Bomber who stole the boxing heavyweight belt from Jim Braddock, and finally Barry Krauss who was linebacker for Alabama rom '76-'79 and 6th overall pick in the NFL draft then was MVP of his Miami Dolphins team. I got to hear Jennifer Chandler, a Olypic diving gold medalist, speak to a group about not giving up on your dreams and placing high goals in life. I left with a stack of brochures and even a book of all the hall of famers that ole Herb hooked me up with.

The visit was great, it gave me insight to how they choose the hall of famers and how people that worked at the hall of fame thought of athletes who used steroids. One manager said, "Everyone in here that we know of didn't take steroids because they weren't an issue back then". He said steroids and athletes could be a problem in the near future because of the generation being inducted in the next few years that were accesible to steroids. Although nobody that did steroids was in the hall of fame, that just opened up thoughts of if you want true success and to be able to pride yourself in your acheivements nobody should even think about doing steroids or performance enhancing drugs because they will strip them all away.

Gym Candy

The book Gym Candy, by Carl Deuker is based on a sophmore football player Mick, who has very big dreams. His father was a major football runningback and made it all the way to the NFL. Mick feels very pressured by his dad's accomplishments and wants to live up to them as his own runningback. He starts working out at a gym called Popeye's with a personal trainer, Peter. Mick is very talented but doesn't have the power or strength he wants to make him stand out greatly from his teammates. As he works out with Peter besides the weight room at school, Peter asks him if he wants to do steroids if he's really serious about getting bigger. Mick denies the request at first but as he comes to a wall and quits getting stronger he gives into Peter's request. As Mick goes on an on using steroids he gets massive. However, during the summer, he was very embarrassed when he hung out with his friends. They went swimming and Mick's acne was so bad and nipples so diformed that his freinds could notice. He decided the steroids were worth the gains but quit when the season came. Instead, Peter introduced him to another type of steroid, XTR. This drug was used to boost power for a short period of time. It also had bad effects such as: stronger roid rage, and bad depression. Mick used it in his games and one game got suspended for cheap shotting a guy. He said to himself he'd quit, but that was a lie because he took it again on their last game against a rival team. His best freind Drew, caught him taking the XTR and after the game threatened to tell the coach. Mick pulled a gun on him but couldn't kill him so he pointed it at himself. He missed, and had to go in a psych ward for a month to get clean.
The two main points that stand out as a learning item from this book are the kind of pressure there can be put on someone and also what steroids can do to you and your mind. The main pressure on Mick was his dad's accomplishments. He looked up to him so much he wanted to do anything to meet him so he had to cheat. Another, is his personal trainer who was the main influence on Mick in a bad time. Peter says, "Mick, you do the D-bol and you keep lifting weights and eating right- you do all those things and you will definately be stronger by August" (Deuker 161). Having that much pressure on an athlete to succeed can easily make him give in to peer pressure and take the drugs.
As seen in this book steroids can take a massive toll on your body and your mind. Countless times in the book Mick could feel the depression and rage taking over him and he had to do all he could to fight it off. He went off on the guy on the other football team and even a guy in his school hallway. Also, Mick was constantly concerned with his body. He couldn't have social life with his friends in the summer because his acne and nipples were so bad. Lastly, the steroids pushed him all the way over the edge; he tried to commit suicide. The worste possible thing he could have done he tried it because he couldn't handle the pressure. I never thought just a little at a time steroids could push someone that far over the edge.




Deuker, Carl. Gym Candy. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.

Where Are the Bodies?

My second multi media source is using a YouTube video called "Truth about Steroids" posted by colekingsly. This video is of a news segment that talks about how all of the media tries to make steroids sound so bad and unhealthy for you when really they aren't. They say steroids are blown up way out of proportion and not really that big of a health risk or cause any death to healthy adult men. A 44 year old man, John Ramont exclaims, "Where are the bodies?! Where are the bodies?". Stating if the media is going to speak out against steroids and say its such a health risk he wants to know "where the bodies are", or where is the evidence that steroids are the cause of health issues. There are two middle to older aged men on this video who say they have been taking steroids for most of their lives but haven't had any major health issues at all. Some people try and relate a brain tumor with steroids when a football player, Liolel Zato died after taking steroids his whole life but many experts including his own doctor said steroids had nothing to do with his death. A man said the only major side effect to the steroids that are taken is that they work really well.
The video opened my eyes a little bit on the other side of steroids. For men who don't want to use steroids for any reason but to make their bodies look better and have better self esteem I can't say I totally disagree now. Seeing some proof that there are no MAJOR health risks all the time and no cause of death I could be okay with men taking steroids for the right reasons of making their body's better.
colekingsly, "Truth About Steroids". YouTube. 5/13/10 .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0LEj8IPHGU



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Are Steroids Addictive?

In the book STEROIDS by Scott E. Lucas, I read the chapter "Are Steroids Addictive". It talked about how steroids can be as addicting as other drugs and how they are related. The chapter says there are two types of addiction; drug abuse liability and drug dependence. Drug abuse liability is where a person is interested and even seeing if you can try and get them is liability. Lucas says, "Actually using the drug is the highest form of abuse liability"(Lucas 66). People seek out steroids because they believe they are not big or strong enough. On the other hand, drug dependence is where not only the fact that you want and crave the drugs, but it's to the point where your body has become adapted to it and can get sick if you don't have it. These are called withdrawals and they include nausea, lack of appetite, painful joints, and muscle cramps when you are quitting steroids. Users who are quitting steroids might need medication to help the withdrawals not be so bad. However, dependence isn't as common for steroids as it is for other drugs.
This was a very interesting chapter and opened my eyes more to how steroids can hold somebody down. If someone started taking them so much and their body got used to it then they decided it was time to stop it would be twice as hard because their body would be dependent on it. Also, I was unaware of the liability type of addiction where even if you see if you can buy them thats considered drug liability. That just sets up more obstacles for people to give steroids up.


Lukas, Scott E.. STEROIDS. Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1994.

Anabolic Steroids: NIDA for Teens

Off of the cite Facts on Drugs: Anabolic Steroids by NIDA writers, they talk about how steroids affect our world and the people in it. NIDA explains how steroids boost testosterone in the male body and make massive muscle growth. They say sometimes steroids are prescribed for people but thats only if its another kind of steroid or your body NEEDS it to function. NIDA says, "Doctors never describe anabolic steroids to young, healthy people to help them build muscle". They gave some "street names" that people use like: roids, juice, gym candy, or arnolds. People take them by popping pills or injecting hypodermic needles. Some are known to take up to 10 to 100 times more than what would normally be prescribed by a doctor. They said, they did a study on high schoolers who have done steroids before and got back only around 1 to 3 percent of high schoolers have even tried steroids. The last thing the NIDA writers pointed out were the side effects which consisted of baldness, shrinkage of testicles, development of breasts and mood swings.

I was not surprised when NIDA got their numbers back low on kids taking steroids. Steroids aren't the most common problem in the regular high school population. Most kids who want them only want it to perform better at a sport but some just want to look better. I know some people who take a type of steroid because they are smaller than some people and it's prescribed by a doctor. It does seem fair that they can take them and not regular people so they can just try and be normal themselves.


NIDA Writers, "Facts on Drugs". National Institute on Drug Abuse. 4/8/10 .


http://teens.drugabuse.gov/facts/facts_ster2.php

Steroid Video: Super Freak

I found a video off of Youtube called E60: Super Freak from the original cite ESPN, that is about a man who had his fair share of steroids. His name is Gregg Valentino and he is known as the man with the largest arms ever. He is a regular man who started out loving body building and opened up his own workout gym. Gregg started having trouble keeping the gym up on his own so he started selling steroids to get more income. He eventually started taking the steroids and became addicted badly. He even used dirty needles and got an infection in his bicep so he popped the blood out on video by himself and became known as the man with the exploding arm on his youtube video. He was taking 4 to 5 thousand milligrams of steroids a week when the normal body produces 50 to 75 milligrams. At the beginning of the video in the interview he didn't really think steroids were that bad and was comparing them to heroine and cocaine. He states, "It's okay to take drugs and drink alcohol then come back to sports and your a hero, but if its steroids everyone overreacts." He came back a month later however, and said he had a very different attitude towards the substance. He had a few personal, emotional, things happen in his life regarding his son having nothing to do with him because he's embarrassed of him and of his daughters friends saying that they saw him in the interview and that it was cool to take steroids. He didn't want to leave this kind of example for kids so he wrote a article in his column of a magazine that he is done with steroids from now on.
It was interesting to see how Gregg changed as a person in just a month through these interviews. I can see how he would not want his reputation to be promoting steroids and the guy with the biggest arms because of steroids. He seems like a good guy who needs to get his life turned back around after steroids messed it up, especially the relationship with his son. I'm glad he changed his mind about his opinion on steroids even though he did have a good point on how people don't look down on other drugs and athletes as much as they do steroids when steroids don't harm you like the others.

ESPN, "E60: Super Freak". Youtube. 4/6/10 . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlNfvwFN_I

website link

Critical Response 2: A Teen Who Abused Steroids

Seeing the perfect bodies in magazines, at the gym, or on t.v. can really put pressure on you to want to look exactly like them. I am doing my response on a story of a teenage guy who wanted just that; he wanted to look just as big or strong, if not better, as other people he saw. This story is on the National Institute of Drug Abuse website for teens. It is focussing on anabolic steroids and talks about Craig who is an average guy going to college but still wants more. So he takes steroids to make his body stand out from everyone else. The cite explains why he takes the drugs, how he takes them, and what they do to his life. Craig has muscle dysmorphia,even if he looks big and muscular to another person he still looks small and weak to himself. He can't handle not being the biggest and the best so he turns to his option that makes the most sense to him, anabolic steroids. He was a heavy user starting at age 18 and was always looking for ways to boost his progress. At first, he was only taking oral steroids to swallow but when he found out injecting the steroids into is better he chose that option. The article says, "At his worst, he was injecting three to four times a day and taking 10 pills on top of that. Craig definately hit rock bottom; he started having serious side effects all over his body. His hair fell out, acne was on his back and he started having chest pains. He even said he couldn't even remember how big of a jerk he was. Obviously it was a pretty big one because he lost his wife and one year old son. His wife said he couldn't see him unless he would get clean of his drugs. Craig wanted his son more than the drugs then and cleaned up his life to see him.

I never knew about muscle dysmorphia until this article, i just figured people were really uncomfortable with themselves. It opened my eyes to how harmful steroids can be to your life just as much as any other drug. It seems Craig had to learn the hard way to get off of steroids and unlatch himself from the addiction.

Baily, Cate. "NIDA for Teens". National Institute on Drug Abuse. 4/2/10

http://teens.drugabuse.gov/stories/story_ster1.php

First Critical Response. Teens and Performance enhancing drugs

I found an article off of CNN.com which was talking about how performance enhancing drugs can harm your body and health. The article is called "Performance Enhancing Drugs and Your Teen Athlete" provided by MayoClinic.com. It talks about how and why teens decide to use them and what parents can do to stop it. According to the Children's Health writers for CNN teens are highly pressured to do steroids and other supplements such as creatine to get the extra gain in a sport they're playing or just want to live up to something. They say that teens think they are less vulnerable and do things other, more mature people wouldn't try. The writers say, "Reasons for teens to do performance enhancing drugs is: pressure from parents, a desire to gain muscle mass, a desire to be stronger, a negative body image, or to compare their body with other people." All the negative affects are too risky to take the drugs and they say it is not worth it. CNN tells parents how to stop their kids from buying performance enhancing drugs by watching what they buy, talk with their coach, and discuss the ethics and proper training.
I agree with the article about how harmful steroids can be and hurt you but if you know how to take and handle creatine without harming your body it isn't that big of a deal. I like some of the techniques they said to use for parents to watch their kids but I agree mostly with just encouraging them in their sport and try and boost their self confidence as much as possible if the teenager needs it.

Mayo Clinic Staff, "Performance Enhancing Drugs and Your Teen Athlete". CNN. 4/2/10 .

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/performance-enhancing-drugs/SM00045.html?iref=allsearch