Steroids Essay, Research Paper

The Psychological Effects of Using Steriods

Anabolic Steriods. What are they? Where do they come from? Why

are they used? From amateurs to pros, from body builders to football

players and every sport in between, Steriods, or “roids” as they are

referred to, have been in the circle of athletes since the 1950?s. Is it

vanity that drives athletes to use steriods? Do they understand the

end results from the abuse of “roids”? What psychological effects do

steriods have on users?

In order to understand the psychological effects of steriods, you

must first understand what steriods are and where they come from.

The natural form of steriods is the hormone testosterone, which is

produced in males by the testes and adrenal glands and by the

adrenal glands in females. The body uses these hormones to combat

inflammation, stimulate development of bones and muscles,

contributes to the growth of skin and hair and can also influnece

emotions. Anabolic Steriods, also known as “juice”, are a synthetic

version of the hormone testosterone. When taken, either orally or

injected, these synthetic steriods fool the body into thinking that

testosterone is being produced and therefore the body shuts down

functions involving testosterone(Mishra 2). Given the right training

stimulus and diet, these steriods enables the user to process protien

into muscle fibers at astonishing rates, creating increased muscle size

and strength with a drop in body fat (due to an increase in metabolic

rate) (Silver 1). They are, in effect, the chemical essence of

manliness, pysical power and masculine aggression (Nichols 38).

Synthetic steriods were developed in the 1930?s to rebuild and

prevent the breakdown of body tissue from disease. In the 1950?s,

synthetic steriods became popular with athletes because they helped

produce this greater-than-normal muscle size and strength, but the

abuse of these synthetic steriods has many dangerous physical and

psychological effects.

Steriods are fast catching up with antibiotics as the most abused

class of drugs prescribed by doctors even though they cannot cure

one single condition. All steriods can do is supress the bodies ability

to express a normal response. Sometimes suppression will give the

body a chance to heal itself, but more often causes permanent

damage. Doctors, by law, cannot prescribe anabolic steriods for the

purpose of athletic enhancement, and possession of these steriods

without a prescription is a felony, but today there are an estimated

one million current or former illegal-steriod users in the United States

(Nichols 1). So why would an individual choose to break the law and

ignor the consequesces, both physical and legal, of using steriods?

From the time children are old enough to join a little league team,

parents, coaches, and society in general, thrust the talented young

athletes into early sports development programs, glorify the

youngsters for willing to risk their bodies in order to win, demand that

they aspire to greatness at any cost, and pass on the vision that

winning isn?t everything, it?s the only thing! Thus, by the time these

youngsters become teenagers “juicing” is a frequent topic of

discussion. They are now subjected to peer pressure and self

justification for using steriods. They fear their performance will not be

as good as it could be and therefore will diminish their self-esteem.

Some student athletes can feel so pressured to succeed in their

sports because they are constantly told that taking risks in sports is

essential to success, that if you are really good the pros will draft

you and you will make millions. Just pick up any sports magazine or

watch commercials. Do you see skinny, wimpy looking athletes

promoting a product? No. You see good looking, muscular and well

built athletes leading you to believe that if you buy this product you

can play as well, and look as good as they do.

Society demands and rewards great athletic ability and success, so

young people do not concern themselves with the long term effects

of using steriods. They know that “roids” can give them what nature

hadn?t: strength, muscle size and that lean, hungry look and they can

have all these things now! The desire to make the team or to impress

their peers is much more immediate than the future prospect of

possible damage to the liver, heart, or other vital organs and the long

term consequences. The social pressure of appearance is the

greatest force that drives young men to the use of steroids. Many

young men feel the need to look “masculine,” that is strong and

muscular. Bodybuilding stresses such muscularity, and some men, and

women, abuse anabolic steriods to increase muscle mass and

definition (Mishra 2). Steroids are an “ego” drug and society sets the

standards. One?s appearance plays a critical part of acceptance in

society, thus the need to look strong and muscular. To create a body

with large and well defined muscles, the “Mr Olympia” look.

Along with the enhanced physical appearance comes an increase in

self-confidence and esteen. While these drugs normall do not produce

a physical addiction the psychological addiction is very real. An

emotional high that comes with an improved body. So what happens

when users terminate the use of steriods? They have become so

dependant on their appearance and the “pumped” feeling they had

while on the steriods, when they discontinue their use, they become

depressed, can?t sleep, can?t eat properly, and can possilby become

suicidal due to the psychological “withdraw” symptoms. They become

so psychologically dependant on the drugs to produce that incredible

appearance they had and they like their looks and increased strength

so much they cannot stop using them (Silver 2).

The use of steroids by females is not as common as with men. Again,

appearance plays the role here also. Steroids in women causes

irreversible masculinization, muscle size and a leaner looking body but

promotes the growth of hair on all parts of the body, lowers their

voices and decreases the size of their breasts. These characteristics

are not as appealing to their appearances or to society, they produce

the opposite feeling of self esteem and confidence that men on

steroids have, but some females like to compete and do not mind the

manly side effects.

Each and everyone of us cares about our appearance and the way

we feel about ourselves. From the way we wear our hair, the clothes

we wear, right down to the cars we drive and the homes we live in,

we want to be noticed. All these things make us feel better about

ourselves. We follow thelatest fashions, styles and trends because

we want to fit in and we want acceptance from our peers and

society. We spend endless hours and countless numbers of dollars on

all sorts of miracle products promising us all the ways to achieve

these goals, such as the miracle diet pills and weight loss plans. We

are willing to do whatever it takes in order to fit in. Some people are

never satisfied with the way they look, even those who use steriods

and have those muscular bodies will always want bigger, better and

more .

If we cannot control our competitive nature, self love, ego and vanity

and if society, as a whole, doesn?t change the way it demands and

rewards the “body beautiful”, and if people cannot learn to be the

best they can be, physically as well as psychologically, without

performance enhancing drugs, there will always be the desire to

achieve the perfect body no matter what the physical or

psychological cost.

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