Steroids
Anabolic steroids are artificially produced male-type hormones used by people to stand out athletically or to improve the way they look. These hormones are produced naturally to battle stress, grow strong and develop. Anabolic just means “muscle building”. Lots of times people refer to steroids as “roids” or “juice”. Anabolic steroids can stay in the body anywhere from a few days to an entire year.
Steroids come in different forms: pills, gels, creams and injections. There are over 100 variations of anabolic steroids and the most powerful of these is testosterone.
Testosterone can attribute to various masculine characteristics like how aggressive the person is, the deepening of their voice, building muscle and hair growth. Though this is mostly a hormone that is naturally produced by men, girls also naturally produce it in very small amounts.
There are also a group of steroids known as steroidal supplements, one of these known as “andro”. These used to be sold legally all over the place, like at different gyms and health food stores but now requires a prescription. Part of the reason why these became illegal is due to the fact that false claims were being made by the manufacturer that produced these products and there wasn’t enough information on what happens given that somebody take these supplements over a long period of time.
What Happens When You Abuse Steroids
Steroids are a prescription drug used in the treatment of conditions that cause steroid hormone deficiency, or diseases that cause someone to lose a lot of muscle mass like cancer and AIDS. But sometimes this drug is taken illegally and abused, especially by athletes or bodybuilders, in order to be “ahead of the game”, look better physically and enhance their performance level of the sport of their choice. People that abuse this drug generally are taking anywhere from ten to a hundred times stronger a dose than those prescribed. Research has shown that steroids can’t literally improve the person’s dexterity in the sport. So all it seems to actually do is build muscle. However sometimes people abusing steroids practice “stacking” which is the term for using a combination of a few different kinds of steroids or non-steroid supplements to enhance the drug’s potency.
The way that anabolic steroids work is they actually stimulate muscle tissue so that it grows, by mimicking the effects of the naturally produced testosterone. In other words, the person still has to be training and working out in order for it to work. This is a very popular illegal drug amongst specifically the athletically inclined individuals for this reason. When people abuse steroids, they tend to do it in a “cycling”. This means that they take breaks between taking it in order to prevent tolerance. They also do this because given too much steroids can cause the body to stop producing its own testosterone. This is also done to avoid some unwanted side effects.
Are Steroid a Gateway Drug?
Steroid can have some pretty damaging effects on somebody’s mood and behavior. Although some who venture into abusing the drug might mistakenly believe it’s a safe drug because it doesn’t trigger an increase in dopamine for the high like a lot of other drugs, steroids still have the same eventual effect on the brain in the long run. For example, abuse of steroids has commonly lead to aggressive behavior where the user has extreme mood swings. One of the moods this person is swung into can include manic type of symptoms. One of these is known as “roid rage”, a pun term for anger that can throw the person into acting violently. On top of this, the abuser can suffer from extreme paranoia, extreme feelings of mistrust, intense irritability, delusions and feelings of invincibility. Because the person abusing steroids is eventually left in somewhat bad shape, it appears that a lot of these people are at a higher risk of abusing alcohol and cocaine or other drugs in an attempt to counteract this awful state they’ve gotten themselves into.
Common Side Effects of Steroid Use
There are several different problems and consequences that are common with abusing steroids. These are:
- Sleep difficulty
- Hair loss or premature baldness
- High blood pressure
- Jaundice
- Liver damage
- Kidney impairment or failure
- Weight gain
- Acne
- Risk of heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer
- Stunted growth
Some effects that are male-specific are:
- Painful urination
- Impotence
- Testicular atrophy
- Increased risk for prostate cancer
- Reduced sperm count/infertility
- Breast development
Some effects that are female-specific are:
- Menstrual changes
- Increased facial/body hair growth
- Development of masculine traits like deepening of the voice
- Shrinkage of breasts
It should also be underscored that people who administer steroids via a needle are at risk for getting HIV, AIDS or hepatitis if they share needles with someone else. With a dirty needle you could contract a litany of infections or diseases and this is a very dangerous activity. Another dangerous aspect of steroid abuse is in the case of somebody who binge drinks while taking steroids. Considering that both substances can affect the liver, the activity of both can lead to liver damage.
Are Steroids Addictive?
Steroid addiction is a legitimate situation where somebody ends up abusing steroids over a long period of time. Steroids are addictive in themselves and there are countless stories where somebody had only planned to use steroids for a short period of time and as a short cut to gaining competitive advantage in their sport but then couldn’t stop taking the drug for a long time. Unfortunately this is obviously a harmful drug, and being illegal has its own set of repercussions, as well as carrying its own stigma in the sports community. If a professional athlete is caught with steroids then their career as they know it is over.
Just like other drug addictions, steroids isn’t much different. People end up spending a lot of time, a lot of sneaking around, and a lot of focus on getting and continuing to abuse steroids. A lot of people have continued the use of steroids despite getting pulled off their sports team, money problems or issues with their relationships which had been affected by their addiction. Unique as this drug might seem, these examples are a reflection of yet another addictive substance. Along with any addictive substance, there are a set of routine symptoms when somebody is withdrawing from steroids. These withdrawal symptoms are:
- Mood swings
- Steroid cravings
- Insomnia
- Restlessness
- Loss of appetite
- Fatigue
- Depression
- Suicidal thoughts
In conclusion, it’s important to recognize that steroid addiction is a real threat, especially with young people today. Abuse of steroids can seriously stunt the growth of somebody taking it who hasn’t hit puberty yet. This is evidently a harmful substance which, not unlike other prescription drugs, people treat as safer than it actually is.
