Steroids Aren't the Problem. Ignorance Is.

The stigma around steroids is bullshit.

Not because steroids are harmless. They’re not. But the way people talk about them is so disconnected from reality that it’s become its own kind of misinformation.

We’ve turned the entire conversation into two extremes. Either steroids turn you into a superhuman god, or they instantly destroy your body and kill you. There’s no middle ground or nuance, no room for an honest discussion about what they actually do and how people actually use them. It’s just fear on one side and fantasy on the other.

Once you frame it that way, you don’t have to think about it any further. You just pick a side and shut your brain off.

Let’s be realistic here. A huge number of athletes are definitely on something.

Professional sports ban steroids, but that doesn’t mean these leagues are clean. It means the people using them are smart about it. These aren’t random idiots blasting whatever they found online. These are people with access to doctors, trainers, and specialists who understand dosing, timing, and long-term health management. Their bloodwork gets checked, and their protocols are adjusted if need be. They treat it like a system, not a gamble.

And, wouldn’t you know it, most of them are doing just fine.

They’re not invincible or immune to consequences, but they’re not dropping dead left and right either. The reality is a lot less dramatic than whatever after-school special version people have in their heads.

When you take that same thing and make it illegal for everyone else, you don’t eliminate demand or stop people from using it. You just strip away any structure that would make it safer. Now the average person who’s curious about steroids has two options: Don’t use them at all, or figure it out themselves in the dark.

A lot of people choose option two, because humans have always pushed limits, whether you like it or not.

So what do those people do?

They go online and read forums. They listen to guys who “know a guy.” They piece together cycles from half-understood advice and outdated bro science. They take more than they should because they think faster results means better results. They skip bloodwork because they don’t even know what to look for. They don’t have a plan to come off. They don’t understand how different compounds interact.

Then things go wrong.

That’s where you get all the horror stories people love to point at. The guy whose hormones are wrecked, the guy whose blood pressure is through the roof, the guy who took way too much of something he didn’t understand and paid for it with organ failure.

Those are the cases that get held up as proof that steroids themselves are the problem.

The real problem is that we’ve created a system where the only people allowed to use them safely are the ones at the top, while everyone else is pushed into guessing.

At their core, steroids are just tools. They improve recovery so you can train harder and more frequently. They allow your body to handle workloads that would otherwise break you down and help you push past some of the genetic ceilings that limit how much muscle you can build naturally. They don’t magically build your body for you. You still have to show up and put in the work. If you half-ass your training and your diet, steroids aren’t going to save you. They’re not some shortcut that replaces discipline, they’re something that enhances it.

That’s why the whole “it’s cheating” argument has always felt lazy to me.

Who or what are you cheating, exactly?

If you’re talking about competitive sports, fine. Those leagues set their rules, and if you break them, you’re cheating within that context. That’s a separate conversation. But in the context of personal fitness, just who are you cheating? Your own body, your own goals? There’s no scoreboard or opponent. Calling it cheating there just sounds like moral posturing.

The inconsistency really stands out when you consider that we already do allow people to take hormones for physically transformative purposes.

If an adult wants to transition and a doctor prescribes hormones, that’s considered legitimate medical care. And that’s fine, I think adults should be allowed to make those kinds of decisions about their own bodies. But if an adult wants to use hormones to improve their physique, suddenly that same category of substances becomes illegal, unethical, and treated like they’re doing something inherently wrong.

It’s basically the same type of substance and the same concept of altering your body through hormones, but it receives a completely different social reaction.

I’m not saying that you have to agree with either choice. That’s not the point.

The point is the standard isn’t consistent. Either adults are allowed to make informed decisions about their bodies with medical guidance, or they’re not. Right now, we pretend one is acceptable and the other is reckless, even though the actual difference often comes down to perception more than risk.

That perception is misinformed, but it’s what shapes policy.

That policy that doesn’t stop usage, doesn’t reduce demand, and doesn’t make anyone safer. It just guarantees that the people who are going to do it anyway are doing it with less information, less oversight, and more risk. Meanwhile, the people with money, access, and connections continue doing it the “right” way behind closed doors while pretending they don’t.

I don’t take steroids. I’d rather see what my body is capable of naturally. There’s something satisfying about knowing every bit of progress came from nothing but consistency and effort.

But that’s my personal choice, and I’m not going to sit here and pretend that someone else making a different choice is automatically reckless, stupid, or taking the easy way out. If an adult understands the risks and works with a qualified medical professional who monitors their health, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s their decision, and it’s not my place to question it.

If we actually cared about people’s health instead of just pretending to, we’d stop forcing that decision into the shadows and start having an honest conversation about how to make it safer.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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