Canadian filmmakers Nenad Barjaktarovic and Shane Smith have created a 12-week internet “reality series” documenting the motivations and experiences of first-time steroid user Peter Brown in “Steroids Saved My Life.” Peter Brown is a recent Vancouver Film School graduate from New Brunswick who has embarked on a 12-week anabolic steroid cycle in the online video series literally on steroids.
Anabolic steroid users have prolificly posted online diaries outlining their protocols and results on various bodybuilding forums over the years. Some first time steroid users have also shared their experiences as well with some touting positive outcomes and others reporting disastrous experiences.
The reality series (through its protagonist Peter Brown) effectively distills the basic motivations behind the typical individual who chooses to use anabolic steroids for non-medical purposes. Brown is neither a bodybuilder or an athlete and has no aspirations to become either. The project practically ignores any stigma associated with steroids resulting from societal demonization of androgens. It delves directly into the motivations and the decision-making process that led to his use of steroids.
Bruce Douthit, MD of the Baylor Medical Center at Frisco revealed himself as a secret weapon in the fight against steroid use by teenagers in high schools and steroid use in sports at the Texas Steroid Summit. He guaranteed that he could simply look at an athlete and determine whether they are using banned or illegal anabolic steroids (”Summit in Frisco to address dangers of steroids,” August 10).
But I guarantee you, if I could walk through the school and pick the athletes there to be tested, my positive rate would be a whole lot higher, because I can look at them and tell whether they’ve been doing it.
Practically every anti-steroid article will include a litany of possible side effects from anabolic steroids, real, overstated, exaggerated, and imagined. But at least they are usually identified as possible or potential side effects that may occur with steroid use. Nowadays, writers are stating the side effects with a greater degree of certainty as to the inevitability of steroid dangers. For example, an article in the Texas A&M newspaper, the Battalion, picks some unlikely steroid side effects and informs readers that steroid users can expect these problems if they use steroids (”Steroid debate: Aggies sound off on performance enhancers,” April 10).
However, the advantage one might gain from the use of steroids is offset by the side effects. Along with psychiatric problems, users can expect cardiovascular and liver damage.
Anti-steroid efforts often involve false, exaggerated, or overstated steroid side effects; these tend to have little credibility anyway. Unfortunately, many people are not only more comfortable making such claims, they are more comfortable asserting the certainty of such unlikely claims.
Actor Vince Vaughn was a guest on David Letterman last month. Letterman located a 1990 anti-steroid CBS Schoolbreak Special called “The Fourth Man” featuring Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley. Vaughn confronts a juiced-up Billingsley about his steroid use and almost gets his ass kicked (”Vince Vaughn fights roid-raging Ralphie,” February 8)!
Oh, and the link between steroids and Hershey’s Syrup. Peter Billingsley played “Messy Marvin” as a child actor in the classic Hershey’s syrup commercials. Excessive Hershey’s Syrup consumption as a child could lead to anabolic steroid use as an adult according to this newly discovered anecdotal evidence. Watch the video clip of innocent Messy Marvin and then the murderous and violent steroid-enhanced Messy Marvin.
