The UK's Steroid Addiction - Social Media Is at Fault @VICE

Watch on YouTube · 2023-11-24 · 17 min

0:00 Hi guys, as requested I'm going to review the Vice documentary called The UK's Steroid Epidemic.

[video] 0:06 You can go into any single gym and buy steroids within five minutes of being in there. Every time you take the st, you're risking st in life, you know? It's a lottery.

0:18 Yes, you are risking your life seeing as it's... just like any drug it's addictive it's very hard to stop therefore and of course it can mess up your organs for one thing your liver especially of course you are destroying your health and therefore risking your life by doing drugs the problem is that people nowadays differentiate between steroids and other drugs even though they are all insanely unhealthy

[video] 0:52 An estimated half a million young men in the UK are addicted to steroids. In fact, the Class C drug is the second most used drug after cannabis.

1:00 So when you train... Cannabis was and still is being legalized everywhere right now because they want the population to be stupid, to put it simply. They want you to do nothing to stop them. The government promotes it incredibly much, especially through the media. Steroids are popular because over 90% of steroid users are ugly or short. Very, very few steroid users are good-looking. I can only think of one, and that is Michael Hearn. He has a pretty good face, and he's also pretty tall. Yes, you can still get brainwashed to get into it, but most of them, just look at them. If you've ever been to the gym, you know who uses steroids and how they look like.

[video] 1:43 But steroids come with some pretty alarming side effects.

1:46 jesus christ man oh boy and um this is because of the toxins coming out of the body some people get very severe acne and these scars can last you for your whole life you will be scarred for life literally including liver and kidney failure we've got a lot of medication for the heart failure and heart attacks as well as mood swings and increased estrogen which results in men needing breast reduction surgery i want to take a look so progesterone increases depending on what kind of steroids you use.

[video] 2:16 He was in season two of Love Island. He's been openly taking steroids for a number of years now. Do you still think there's, like, bad connotations with steroid use and, like, the whole stigma of your balls will shrink? Ah, that's not stigma. That's f***ing true. It's true? Yeah, my balls are tiny. Well...

2:37 That's because you're not producing your own testosterone anymore. There's no need for it, which is why there's no use for your testicles anymore. Not that it's the only use for your testicles, just to be clear.

[video] 2:54 Tom, take me back. What was your physique like before steroids? Back in school, I was a chubby little kid. So for years, for years, I was, until I realized.

3:06 Chubby little kid, that adds up.

[video] 3:08 Girls don't like fat guys. When did you start taking steroids? Five months after Love Island. Was being on camera, did that affect how you saw yourself? Yeah, I felt pressured to stay in shape more. It wasn't the reason why I jumped on steroids. It was a contributing factor. Obviously, I wanted to look good all the time because you're constantly in the public eye. The main reason why I went on Love Island is because I wanted to be

3:24 Yeah, it's understandable. He was on a TV show, Love Island. I've never watched it, I don't know it, but I assume that it's just some island where they go and then they walk around in their underwear or whatever. I've heard of some of these shows. I don't watch any of that garbage, obviously. Then, of course, you will feel like you need to look a certain way, because that's what people expect from you, and a lot of these guys also believe that women are into that, even though women are not at all into those kind of physiques, but they don't ask what women are into, they ask other guys what they believe women are into. If you would for once ask a woman if she likes your physique, then you would at last realize how wrong you are.

[video] 4:02 Become a sponsored athlete. I met the guys that I wanted to become, you know, and I asked them straight away. I was like, boys, talk to me about steroids. Are you on them? And they said, yeah, you can't get anywhere in this industry without them. You can go into any single gym and buy steroids within five minutes of being in there. That's nuts, man. They're very, very available. So what's the biggest you've ever got? 120 kilos lean. Five, six years ago, when I first started taking steroids, I wanted to be these, you know, topless influencers that were shredding. I wanted to be that. And now I realize that that was the wrong way to go about it. And that's not what the fitness industry should be. I take TRT now, which is called testosterone replacement therapy. It's a very low level of testosterone. It's not for muscle gains, it's just for replenishment of me.

4:37 He has all of these tattoos also. He was a little chubby kid, and now he's full of tattoos and steroids. It's just so typical.

[video] 4:45 When you first started taking it, what were the side effects? This is when I was taking Tren, my third cycle. So I had a lot. My mood swings were up and down. Night terrors, which is horrible dreams every single night. Couldn't keep it hard on.

4:59 Damn. Trenergy.

[video] 5:02 I looked incredible. I looked lean, I was full, you know, it was great, but I felt like death. You did something mad recently, like, you were having a surgery, and then you livestreamed it? Yeah, I had gyno surgery. Gyno's a build-up of oestrogen behind the nipple. I'm oestrogen sensitive, so when I was taking steroids, my oestrogen built up and stuck behind my nipple, basically, and it was causing pain. Why did you livestream it, bro? To raise awareness. I know it's a bit crazy. The more people it sees, the more people it reaches, the more people are going to see it and maybe get checked out, so I thought, yeah.

5:28 Yeah, that's good.

[video] 5:29 Why not go live? I'm trying to enlighten people about the use of steroids. Bodybuilding, they get so shredded. They lose their sex drive. And we, as a community, epitomize these people with six-packs. And actually, these guys are so not healthy. Women lose their periods for life sometimes, not just a couple of weeks.

5:48 Oh, very, very good. Okay, I gotta say, I have some respect for this guy now that he actually says this. I talk about this a lot in my videos. Yes, if you work out, and especially if you use steroids, you will lose your period as a woman, you will become infertile, and... It actually can happen for life. You really got to understand it because no matter what you think about your life right now as a woman, you will want to have children eventually. Over 90% of the women who say that they don't, when they are around 20, eventually realize that they of course do because it's natural and you won't be able to anymore. Your hormones change incredibly much if you're on the pill. Or if you combine that with steroids, you're going to be completely hormonally messed up. But eventually, especially if you get off that stuff, when you get back to a somewhat normal biochemical state, then you will realize what you actually want in life. And all that you did before that will seem like an absolute joke to you, because it is a joke to you. It's a joke for the people who are looking. at it from the outside.

6:46 You just don't realize it because you're stuck in this. You've been brainwashed very severely. Even the people who don't use any drugs but simply exercise a lot will still experience the loss of their period and infertility.

[video] 6:59 Would you advise me to take steroids? Find your own path. I want to be in the industry so much. I listen to what anyone else did. Do your own journey. You can use drugs to lower the estrogen and the progesterone, but usually those drugs also have side effects for which you then also need other drugs to counter the side effects. It's almost a never-ending cycle.

[video] 7:32 in a week due to steroids? I do about two to three a day. So if we say half of them are due to steroids, I mean, we're talking about 15 in five days, so about seven or eight probably from steroid use. Wow. But I'm the king of gyno.

[video] 7:50 Are you still on steroids right now? Yeah. This hasn't stopped you? Nah. I think the problem is I'm so far into it now. I wish I'd never started, but now I'm on it, it's too late. Dr Jones is waiting for you now. Good luck, my guy. See you later. You got this, man. How do you feel? Nervous. Currently.

8:16 He just looks chubby now, basically. Oh man, that's how a lot of them end up, most of them.

[video] 8:24 Is it ticklish right now? Nah, it's alright at the moment. This is the stuff that's hanging out and here's the actual glance of what I'm getting. Since steroids are illegal to sell in the UK, where do they come from? I'm in an undisclosed location and I'm about to meet an international steroid dealer who makes steroids in his kitchen.

[video] 8:42 Yo. All right, what's going on right now? So, basically, I'm... So, basically, I have a solution of Nanjalone or Deca. We've got the raw powder here, put a couple of chemicals in there, and I'm just finishing it off with some seed oil. This is the carrier, this is the solution. Now, how do you get the right ingredients for it? Well, I mean, if you're buying it, you know, over the internet, or even from your local dealer, you don't know what the fuck you're getting. Especially when you're injecting it straight into your muscle. Has it got hairs in it? Has it got bits of fucking shit floating in it that's going to give you, you know, sepsis? What's the wildest things that you've heard being put inside steroids, then? Well, I've seen some very dirty conditions, you know, smoking cigarettes over it. The ash is dropping in, it's not getting filtered. I've seen people have injections and they go bad. They have to have the whole leg cut open and drained. It's fucking risky. It's risky. There's not a lot of people actually making this shit. So the guy in the gym who's telling you, yeah, yeah, this is the best, yeah, how the fuck do they know? Do you know what I mean? Every time you take this shit, you're risking your fucking life, you know? It's a lottery. Unless you're making this yourself or getting it from a pharmaceutical company, you don't know what the fuck's in it. He may not be trying to kill people directly, but he's most certainly not making them healthy.

[video] 9:48 That's really bad, but that's because of social media. That's just what young guys nowadays see everywhere on YouTube, TikTok.

10:11 You have steroid users all over these platforms. Of course, they will be influenced by them. They will want to look like them because they will lie that the girls like that. They will feel like they need to do it if they are short or ugly. It's kind of even understandable, like Tristan Lee, for example. It was almost inevitable for him to end up the way he did. It's also almost inevitable that these guys will all die young. And that's because... They already saw no purpose to their lives. They're trying to make the best out of it, which is actually the worst. They don't realize it, but they feel like they're doing the best they possibly can by taking drugs and going to the gym. Even if you don't take drugs and go to the gym, you're still destroying your health. You just don't realize it. You believe that you're doing the best and making the best out of your body when you're actually destroying it.

[video] 10:58 If you train properly, die properly, take this shit, you're going to feel indestructible. Who doesn't want to feel like that? All of these ingredients are easily sourced? Yeah, easily. The chemicals are just household, everyday items. Sourcing the rolls, you have to order them from abroad, get them shipped in. And that's the riskiest part, if customs sees it. But that's all they'll do. And the risk-reward, if you can't pay all the drugs on you, it's insane the returns you can get. It wouldn't be uncommon for us on a bad month to make 50 grand, and a good month make 100 grand. On a bad month, 50 grand? So easy.

11:28 50,000 quid, mate. Bloody fucking hell. That's a lot of British sterling.

[video] 11:37 There's filter paper on here. It's just a very fine membrane. If this is not filtered, you are for sure going to have big problems, okay? You're going to have gaping holes in your ass or in your shoulder or whatever with poison coming out. So this step is very important. So we've got here finished product. Just do it by eye. So now you've got your bottle. It goes on. There you go. This is nuts. And if you put a light through, you should say it's clean. There should be no particles in there. That's a good tip, actually. If you do buy a gear, get a light on it. If there's shit floating in the gear, don't take it. Don't take it. Cap comes off. There you go. He says that while making the stuff. I get it, it's his so-called business, but still it's kind of funny.

[video] 12:28 It is a very good business in the sense that

12:52 a lot of people in gyms are looking to buy steroids all that you need to do is find the right guys which is pretty easy nowadays because of social media and there you go you have your victims so a lot of steroids that are available in the market might be unsafe and it could lead to definitely infections septicemia and you might even have limbs removed it worries me that even People are just very desperate to look like the guys that they see on YouTube, for example. That's the problem here. You have actual drug addicts being promoted by YouTube, TikTok and so on. What other outcome can you even expect?

[video] 13:35 The dealer is warning people not to take steroids. But for some athletes competing in the bodybuilding industry, they would argue that taking steroids is a necessity.

13:47 Yes, you could say that because you're competing with other slaves. All of you are loser slaves who failed at life. All of you are drug addicts. And all of you compete against each other. Yes, you need it to fit into the loser club, of course.

[video] 14:03 Every single athlete today, it will be the first time everyone will be on the stage. So we do need to give them lots and lots of support. We have our first athletes ready, I believe.

14:16 fleets is just laughable.

14:22 Jesus, you can already tell that this guy looks way older than he probably is. There's no full name, otherwise I would look up how old he is, but you can just tell that he's younger than he looks like. You have all these wrinkles.

[video] 14:36 to minimalise any risks that they may pose. Would I promote it and advise someone to do it? No, I wouldn't. But for me, I'm competing against others that do it. You have to stand a chance. Even the playing field's been done. Exactly.

14:51 Yeah, but you're competing for what? To get some kind of an award? You usually do it because you want to get attention from people. That's what this is all about at the end of the day. And the reason you want attention is because you didn't get enough attention as a kid from your parents. Usually that's the case. Maybe from some girls, and this is going to make it even worse. You're just ruining your life in every possible way. Everything you ever wanted, you're gonna get even less of. Everything only gets worse when you use drugs.

[video] 15:20 Are there people that have passed that steroids may have played a significant role in it? Yes, without a doubt. You can't OD on steroids. You know what I mean? You can't go and take too many and drop dead. Yeah. It's a time thing.

15:32 What do you mean? Of course you can. If you take too many, you would die. Most people, I guess, don't do that. But it's just an illogical thing to say.

[video] 15:41 It's a constant abuse situation. So what advice would you give to an 18-year-old possibly considering taking steroids? I have people come to me on a weekly basis. I'm telling them they're now testosterone-dependent or they're now infertile. And they're shocked by that revelation. You know, there is risk with these drugs. Learn the risks you're taking and then decide if those risks are worth those rewards.

16:02 Yeah, that's the thing. The people who take them already don't see any point to their life anymore, which is why they don't care if they become infertile, for example. They already don't want to reproduce. Their life is already over in their minds.

[video] 16:17 From what I've learned, a lot of men turn to steroids when they're feeling self-conscious, with social media platforms often perpetuating the narrative, feeding us unrealistic body images. Ironically, the side effects can sometimes make men even more self-conscious and in some cases be fatal. There needs to be more education available on the impact steroids can have on men's lives. Because if people are aware of the potential risks, I doubt so many would take them.

16:47 This was a pretty good documentary by Vice. Informative. You could hope that people who want to take steroids will see it and will at least think twice about taking them. The ones who are already taking steroids will probably not stop taking them because of the documentary. As I said, the people who take drugs have underlying issues. A lot of them realize that they are too short, too ugly, have this or that complex, and that's why they take the steroids. They understand that their life... is already messed up sometimes it's genetic but uh it's just that taking steroids will make it even worse which they don't realize they believe that this is a way for them to somehow get better it's some kind of an improvement even though it's actually always going to be detrimental for your health and for your looks thanks for watching