Teen Boys’ Goal : Steroids’ Lure: A Way to Look Good

Girls were the goal, and the teen-aged boy from Huntington Beach figured that muscles were the way to get them.

The problem was getting muscles. Lifting weights took time and had made little difference to his 150-pound, 5-foot, 9-inch frame. A buddy at school had suggested steroids.

Anabolic steroids, synthetic male hormones made in test tubes and popped as pills or injected with a needle, had become the lastest craze among the muscle set. A national survey published just this month by the Journal of the American Medical Assn. estimated that as many as half a million high-school seniors had used steroids, most of them obtained illegally through friends or dealers.

Scary Side Effects

At first, the Huntington Beach student was “totally against” the idea. After all, there can be scary side effects. Research has linked steroid use to the possibility of liver damage, acne, hostility and an increase in risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Steroids can also reduce sperm production, sex hormone output and sex drive.

He was not even much of an athlete. All he was after was a better-looking body. But it turned out that is precisely why a surprisingly large number of male adolescents use steroids. Of the estimated 6% of the nation’s 12th-grade boys who have experimented with steroids, more than a quarter have done so simply to improve appearance, the medical association’s study revealed.

When a trainer assured him it was OK, the Huntington Beach student decided to go ahead. Over the next few months, he became what is known as a Juicer or ‘Roider, a regular user of anabolic steroids. Now that he has been “on the juice” for a year, he is “kind of proud.” He has gained 35 pounds, amassed some fairly impressive biceps and is no longer worried that when he meets girls they will think him “a pencil-necked geek.”

World of Contradictions

Yet, like many teen-agers, he is less than willing to talk openly about what he is doing. Fearing trouble with the law and recriminations from parents and even peers, steroid users move in a world of contradictions, one that is both exposed and full of braggarts and is dark and peopled with sneaks and cowards.

The youngsters who enter this world often seem torn between pride about their very visible, newly chiseled physiques and anger--perhaps tinged with shame--that they have to resort to artificial means to get those looks and that so much is being made of it.

In fact, what they are doing is against the law. Alarmed that steroid use is dangerous and on the rise, California officials along with those of a dozen other states have instituted new laws that make possession of the drug in any form without a prescription a misdemeanor, punishable by six months in jail. As with other illicit substances, possession of steroids for sale to a minor is a felony, carrying penalties up to six years in prison and $20,000 fines.

Few teen-agers, however, have any fear that they could get caught or that anything bad will happen to them physically as a result of their use of artificial muscle builders.

“Most high school kids have a strong notion of their own immortality,” explained Jonathan Brower, a sports sociologist in Westlake Village. “Intellectually the warnings may register, but emotionally it never hits home. They possess this incredible sense of invincibility.”

At most city gyms and fitness centers, men and boys can easily obtain steroids from black market sources in the weight rooms.

Prices Vary Enormously

The prices vary enormously. A 10-cc bottle of injectable steroids, which has enough doses to last for a couple of months, can be purchased over the counter in Mexico for $8 to $20. The same bottle may sell for as much as $120 to $140 in gyms and on the street. A month’s supply of pills typically runs $200 to $300.

Most people take one or the other form of steroids for only a few weeks at a time and then lay off for a while, which is thought by those who use them to cut down on side effects. Only a few who are particularly eager to achieve results take both pills and the injections at once, a practice known as stacking.

“Even that’s probably OK,” insisted a weight trainer in his early 30s in a fashionable Pasadena gym. “To hear all the publicity these days, you’d think we were killing ourselves. . . . Way too much is being made of it. It’s been sensationalized and assaulted like you wouldn’t believe.

“In a way, it’s become the McCarthyism of the 1980s. If you admit to doing it, you’re in trouble and it’s sure an easy way to point a finger at someone you don’t like. . . .”

Sure there are dangers, he added. “I’ve taken the stuff for the past four years both with pills and with injections, and I’ve gotten plenty of acne and some rectal bleeding. But it’s just a question of what you value.

“The big thing is aggression. You probably get some increased aggression with this stuff. On the other hand, you have to be pretty aggressive to use steroids in the first place.”

You also have to be pretty insecure. At least that is what Carol Hayman thinks.

A drug counselor at New Start, a clinic in Santa Monica, Hayman has come to think that the whole phenomenon of steroid use is the 1980s answer to the narcissism that always afflicts adolescents.

‘Feelings of Inadequacy’

“How things look on the outside is what counts,” she said. “Whether it is eating disorders, anorexia, or whatever, these are all manifestations of feelings of inadequacy.”

In other words, you look in the mirror, and you don’t like what you see.

Most people grow up learning to live with their imperfections and, in some cases, turn their deficiencies to advantages or at least compensate for inadequacies in one area by developing strengths in other areas.

Today, people try to take the easy way out. Whatever the problem, “there is a general notion that we can take a chemical and get fixed quick,” Brower said.

Greg Shadid, former football coast at Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove, said most students on steroids probably believe they are actually doing something good for themselves.

“They go to a gym and see a really big guy and find out the guy is on steroids and looks healthy,” Shadid said. “They see all that bulk and the guy looks good and they figure that’s health and that’s what they want. The don’t see that guy rotting inside.”

Some teens are not so naive. They know there are potential problems, and yet the immediate benefits somehow seem worth the risks.

That is the view of an Irvine student. A tall, gangly junior in high school, he had been the butt of every thin joke in town until he discovered steroids and body-building six months ago.

For him, the results were impressive. He was able to give up blousy shirts and baggy pants for tight jeans and skimpy T-shirts. And, for the first time in his life, he had a steady girlfriend. But he knows what his parents, especially his dad, would think.

“Steroids are illegal, and with all the chatter about what they do to your body, I’m sure my dad would be real upset,” he said. “My dad is one of those natural freaks who runs every day and eats nothing but green, leafy vegetables. Steroids don’t quite fit into that program.”

Nagging Doubt

Even in the student’s own mind that nagging doubt about whether steroids are safe surfaces every time he takes a pill. He has been told that injecting steroids can produce even more dramatic weight gains and muscle size. But the thought of locking his bathroom door at home and injecting himself is “too much to handle.”

In many ways, steroid users do not fit the image of other drug users. Certainly there are fewer of them. In contrast to the estimated 6% of 12th-grade boys who have used steroids, more than 8% of the class of 1987 had tried LSD; 15% had taken cocaine; 17% had inhaled glues, gases or sprays; 50% had smoked marijuana; 90% had drunk alcohol, according to an annual survey of high school students by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Unlike other drug usage, steroid consumption seems to be an extension of the “Body Beautiful” syndrome, according to Joe Doane, chief of the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, an investigative arm of the state attorney general’s office. The fitness movement is a 180-degree reversal from the 1960s when laid back was chic.

“I was part of the ‘60s when wearing hair long and dropping out was definitely in,” Doane recalled. “Today, ‘in’ is wearing a pair of Adidas and lifting weights three or four times a week at a local gym. Steroids are part of that trend. Steroids can take you where you want to go in a hurry.”

A Linebacker’s Goal

For some, it seems to be the only way to get to where they want to go.

For the last several years, a high school linebacker has been working out for hours every week at the Pasadena gym, according to the trainer there.

The student’s prowess on the football field has become almost legendary. But at 5 feet, 7 inches, he knew long ago that he was too small “vertically” to get a position on a college team, which was what he most wanted. With the help of steroids from the time he was 14 or 15, he has successfully increased his size “horizontally” to a full 200 pounds, and at the age of 18 he thinks he has at least a shot at a full scholarship on a Division 1 team.

“Without steroids, he simply could not have done it,” the trainer said.

With steroids, however, he may well have stunted his growth, according to pediatricians who are adamantly opposed to drug use, particularly in growing children whose bone growth can be permanently stopped by use of steroids.

Whatever their advantages or disadvantages, body-building chemicals may well be “the drugs of the 1990s,” predicted William Taylor, a 37-year-old Florida physician who has written two books on the subject.

Emphasis on Muscles

“When I was growing up, the only imposing muscular images were in cartoons and comic books,” he said. “Today those images are all around us. On TV, in movies, on department store mannequins, at the high school football game. Kids are led to believe unless you look super fit, you’re sick.”

For many youths today, just knowing juicers is a kind of badge of honor.

“Do I know any steroid users?” said a 17-year-old boy from Denver. “Sure. I know 15 or 16 juicers.”

When pressed for names, the numbers drop mysteriously to one, maybe two.

Some teen-age boys seem to collect horror stories about steroid use as males of an early age acquired fish tales or war stories and as boys of all ages seem to come by sex stories.

Today’s boys tell of friends of friends getting into vicious fights, becoming impotent, ejaculating blood, following prolonged uses of steroids. One young man claimed he knew someone who knew someone who had gotten so muscular that he actually had stretch marks on his face. And plenty of boys know firsthand other boys who have stretch marks on their arms and legs from muscles that grew too big, too fast.

Girls Not Impressed

Ironically, however, it is the girls--the ones the boys are trying to impress--who are probably the least impressed by steroid use. Reports of female models, sporting the new chiseled look, or even female body builders using steroids are rare indeed.

At a recent impromptu gathering of high school journalism students at University High School in West Los Angeles, it was the young women in the class who spoke out most forcefully against steroids.

Tanya Greig, a cheerleader, said she knew of three boys “for sure” who have been using steroids. Although they are friends of hers, there seems to be nothing she can do or say to make any difference.

“It’s really dumb that they don’t see the dangers of it,” said Jessica Drapkin, a manager of the Uni football team and sports editor of the school newspaper. “A lot of girls know its absolutely stupid. More girls seem to know about the side effects than boys do. Guys seem to take this, like most things, more lightly than do girls. Maybe girls are just smarter.”

Also contributing to this story were staff writers Steve Lowery and Nancy Wride The Language of Steroids

‘Roids, Juice or Sauce: steroids

On the juice: taking steroids

‘Roider: someone who uses steroids

‘Roids rage: a steroid-induced tantrum or outburst which can be violent.

Joy rider: someone who uses steroids purely to look good.

Buffed: the ultimate definition of successful steroid use-visibly heavier and more muscular.

Stacking: using several types of steroids at once.

Dorks: someone who uses steroids indiscriminately without having knowledge about the drugs or the source.

Gym pusher: a marketing specialist who sells steroids out of his gym bag behind the weight machines.

Quack doctor: a physician who routinely and indiscriminately prescribes diet pills, Valium, steroids-no questions asked.