The Abuse of Steroids Essay Example

Having a perfect body with a decent amount of muscles, abs or have better stamina and power is a dream of many people in the world. However, it is not easy to achieve this dream. A bodybuilder or athletes need to have a strong will to follow a strict diet, spent at least 6 hours a week in the gym and it takes years to achieve this. Most of the people will give up in a few months, maybe a few days. Some spent year and year to training themselves. Some want a short way to have a perfect, masculine body, and anabolic steroid is that quick way.

So what are anabolic steroids? “Anabolic steroids are synthetically produced variants of the naturally occurring male hormone testosterone” (Anabolic Steroids). People using anabolic steroids to building more muscles or boost their performance in sport. Some of the common names are Gear, Roids, Juice, and Stackers. The doctor uses steroids typically to treat hormonal issues, such as to boost up a rate of testosterone in some patients that have delayed puberty. Steroids can also treat muscle loss caused by cancer or AIDS. However, some bodybuilders and athletes miss understood the way steroids work and use it to boost their performance and to improve their physical appearance by gaining more muscles and reduced more fat. The majority of using steroids are male bodybuilders and athletes in their 20s and 30s while in women steroids are not that popular.

Absorption 

There are three common ways to absorb steroids into the body, people can drink steroid in a pill form, but it has the higher risk of liver damage, and some anabolic steroids will not work because its might broke down in the stomach. The second way to absorb anabolic steroids is to inject it directly into the muscles area like chest or biceps. The last one is to apply them to the skin as gel or body cream. Bodybuilder and athletes also use steroids 10 to 100 times higher than people that need steroid in their treatment because they want the fastest results. There are so many ways that bodybuilder misusing the steroid but most common is cycling, stacking, pyramiding. Cycling is taking multiple doses of steroid in a period time, then stopping for a time and then use it again. Stacking is using 2 or more types of steroids in one time. Pyramiding is slowly increasing the dose of steroid until reaching a peak amount, then gradually decrease the dose until it tapering until zero. Bodybuilder using these methods to reduce the risk of steroid into their body but there is no scientific evidence to prove these methods are working.

Misusing anabolic steroids can lead to many dangerous consequences for whom that is taking it. Agree that steroid can help people to get the body that they dream of, but the side effects are too much and the perfect body might not worth it. First, these steroids can affect the brain. It can trigger aggressive behavior of people that using it. Which means it can make people angrier and mean, even with their close friends or their family members. But the most dangerous part if somebody using steroids and stop using it, they might get depressed, nervous caused by the changing of the hormone. The critical part of depression is that it can lead the patient to suicide. So, to stop the depressed or nervous feeling, people who stop from using steroids might have to use it again, that makes them addicted to it and the more steroids they use, the more risk of health they will get. Besides the psychological effects, steroids also affect on their body physical. The typical physical side effects of steroid are hair loss, liver damage, kidney diseases, heart attack, high blood pressure, shrinking of testicles and so on. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the legendary of bodybuilding also criticize steroids even though he had used it in the past because he knows the dangers of it, he said:

"You cannot compare what we took in the seventies with what they are taking now. We were taking 15mg then, and they take 1000 mg of the same thing now" (Bell). It is outrageous. It is just huge amounts of dosages. It is only because of the lack of education that they do not know "that it will kill them. What they need to do is rely more on the success is to work your butt off. There is no shortcut. If you think there is accomplished in your life was because you worked your butt off, not because you found some shortcut”.(Bell)

Arnold knows the dangers of steroids, and he wants to educate the younger generation of the bodybuilder and athlete to avoid it but many still willing to take it. Why people still using it when they know it has tons of side effects? Because of their ego, they want to look perfect into somebody eyes, and they do not want to work hard, they want the shortcut, so they choosing steroids. Another reason for steroids abused is it easy to buy. Most of the steroids are smuggling into the U.S from other countries like Mexico or Europe countries. Smuggling steroids from these countries are natural because it does not require a prescription form a doctor to buy steroids and in the digital technology age, people can buy anabolic steroids directly from the internet, and it is not too expensive. Cheap, easy to use, big ego and lack of educated is the reasons the many people nowadays using steroids.

How to prevent the abuse of steroids

To prevent the abuse of steroids, the U.S made the using or sale of steroid without the doctor prescription is illegal. The maximum penalty for possession of steroids is one year in prison, $1,000 minimum fine and five years in jail, $250,000 for the individual that illegal trafficking steroids for the first time. If recurring trafficking steroids, the penalty will double up. In sport, The National Olympic Committee (IOC), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and many professional sports leagues like Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League (NFL), and National Hockey League) all agree to banned steroids because of its dangerous side effects for the athletes. Steroids also will make the sport unbalanced and unfair for the athletes that not using it. Androstenedione, steroids precursors also banned for the same reason as steroids. In some states in the U.S, college and school are drug testing student by the drug prevention program. The National Olympic Committee and all the professional sports leagues are using the athlete's urine to testing if they were using steroids or not, even when they are not in the competition. However, with strict law in both society and sports, many athletes or bodybuilder still willing to use steroids in other to have a better performance in their specific job. Better performance will bring them more victory, glory, and money. Because of that, their health is not necessary anymore. Rich Piana, a famous bodybuilder, committed that he been using steroids for many years and the heart diseases caused by using anabolic steroids end his life. Rich Piana is not the only victim, Mike Matarazzo, Greg Kovacs, Daniele  Seccarecci also died because of steroids when they were only around 40 years old.

In modern society, maybe health is not the most important that people care anymore, money, glory, victory, ego makes people blind and headed to steroids. Perhaps strick law about selling, using steroid is not enough. Teaching student about the dangers of steroids, show them what will happen if they use steroids. Encourage the athletes about the true spirit of sports. They playing sport because of their passion, to have fun and improve their health. Money or glory just a small part. Let the bodybuilders see anabolic steroids is not the only way to have a masculine body. Work hard, and a good diet will lead them to the same results if they are taking steroids. Natural bodybuilders might take years to train, but when they achieved their goal, they will feel proud, better, stronger for themselves and not regret anything. On the other hands, unnatural bodybuilders will achieve their goals faster, maybe in a few months. But in the end, will they proud of themselves? Will they confident about their body? Because it is not hard to show the different about the natural and unnatural bodybuilders. Tons of diseases will come into them, but regret is too late, and there is no turning back. Many successful athletes had positive with steroids and got banned from the sports their participation. Bodybuilders die because of using steroids too much. The glory will come, but it will quickly fade away. Health, fun, the true spirit of sports is the most important thing.

Steroids are not dangerous if people using it for the right purpose. It is just a natural medicine to cure some specific diseases prescripted by the doctors to their patients. Abused steroids are bad. Like any medicines else, if people using it too much or addicted to it, many bad sides affect will come and makes the health at risk. So stay-aways form steroids, it does not help anybody to achieve their goal. Steroids are killing them slowly throughout the time they use it. People, bodybuilders, athletes need to know that working hard, proper diet, and persistence is the key to extended their limits. Anabolic steroids are not the short cut to the dream; it a shortcut to the graveyard.