Drugs
Anabolic Steroids

Do you think that nothing bad can happen to you?
Anabolic steroids are dangerous drugs. Some young people use them to change the way they look. Craig wanted to be more muscular. At first he lifted weights. Then, he started to use anabolic steroids.

I hit a plateau. That was it. I wasn’t getting any stronger. My body wasn’t changing any more. The compliments and the stuff, they kind of faded, too. It was like, O.K., I’m going to give it a shot. Steroids are on the Internet, in gyms, in the schools, it’s wherever you need it.

The first needle that I took, I got sick and I almost passed out. It was a nauseating thing. It was disgusting sticking a needle in yourself.

The rages that I had, my attitude was just horrible. I had blowouts with my sister, I had blowouts with friends and family. I didn’t really care who I was hurting along the way. The priority was that I wanted to get big - big, like magazine big. That’s all I could think about. I didn’t see myself flipping out. I’d try to candy coat every situation and hide all the aggression as best I could.

As a result of steroid abuse I had the hair loss, I had the acne on the back. I was having chest pains and I went to see a cardiologist. The EKG’s came back a little bit off. It was due to steroids, my aorta was hardening. Everything was growing at once.

One of my close friends even said, “Craig, enough’s enough. I don’t even want this stuff here anymore. You need to relax; it’s getting too much.” It was like, OK, that’s great. Thank you for your advice. I’m going to shut you out now, too.

I was married for a short, short time. I had a little baby boy. My wife at the time knew I was addicted to steroids. We broke apart. My son got taken away because of the steroid use. That was the turning point for me. Having your son totally taken out of your life, not even being able to see him, is enough for anybody to just go, 'OK, that’s it.' I threw all my steroids out. That was my quitting point.

Now I have my son and a significant job that I love. Now I have things going on that I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to die. I don’t to hurt my family and friends due to my own abuse.

Now instead of worrying about my arms or my legs and stuff like that, I’d rather have people, you know, look at me as a dad.