A friend and I had been going out in an attempt to get me out of my post-divorce funk and I found it fun, though unfulfilling. It seemed I didn’t have what it took to attract women. I was too honest, too plain, too "ordinary".
One night we were at a local dance club. I was at the bar ordering another in a string of long islands when I met a girl. She was pretty. She was blonde, she was in shape. She was everything I wanted - or at least thought I did. We talked and laughed a bit and I thought we'd connected about as well as you could in a smoky, dark bar full of drunk people. I left her with her friends to go tell my friend about her. I was so elated. I thought I'd finally met someone worth my time.
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I turned to my friend and said "tomorrow you tell me how much I need to give you to get me a good cycle. Tomorrow I start getting huge."
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As I described her to my friend he glanced out across the dance floor, pointed rather reluctantly and said "her?". I looked out and saw her jackin some dude up like she was gettin paid. He was big, About 240, maybe 250 and stood about 5 foot 8, maybe 5 foot 9. He wasn’t much to look at facially, but he had impressive bi's and killer shoulders . . . and she was so into him. He stood there in his white v-neck undershirt and tight jeans, looking as though this was just another day to him. He didn’t see the wonderful woman I'd met earlier, just a piece of ass to be claimed and discarded. And she seemed fine with that.
 I wanted that attention, that attraction. That was it. That was the moment I decided that I couldn’t get to where he was without taking a step into the dark side. And strangely that didn’t bother me.
Up until then I'd been training naturally (I can post some pics if'n ya want me to) and I'd made some progress but nothing compared to the juicers in my gym. In fact some of the guys I'd been bigger and stronger than had surpassed me because of their gear use. I had stuck to my guns and tossed out all the stereotypical arguments against gear but standing there, that night, and seeing this great girl fall for a physique over substance was the final stroke. I turned to my friend and said "tomorrow you tell me how much I need to give you to get me a good cycle. Tomorrow I start getting huge."
He questioned my intentions and my motivations as any good friend would. But since he was on I felt he should just shut-up and get me the same gear he was using. In retrospect I should have taken his cue as a sign that maybe I should rethink things. I was blinded by desire and drunk on lust. I wanted to be so much more than I was that I didn't stop to think about the fact that maybe, to the right person, I was already enough.
Thus began a decade + long affair with steroids. For as much as I ever gained from gear, gear cost me more.
I sit here today sterile, incapable of giving my wife the one thing she wants more than anything: a child. Sure, she plays it off as though its not that important but I see her eyes when she watches TV and see's women giving birth in TV shows. She's too loyal and too classy to let me know outright how disappointed she is but I can tell.
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If I could go back in time and give myself some advice I'd have told me to wait. To be patient. To train diligently, to eat right and to be thankful to be healthy rather than roll the dice with my health.
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At my best I topped the scales at a lean 274/278. I had big legs but never in proportion to my torso. My triceps were always bigger than my biceps. I could never have competed and won. So at best I was just a big guy at the bar. While that did get me a short stint as a bouncer which gave me many good stories to tell and a respectable list of women whose bed I shared, none of it was worth the inability to give my wife a child.
If I could go back in time and give myself some advice I'd have told me to wait. To be patient. To train diligently, to eat right and to be thankful to be healthy rather than roll the dice with my health. My blood pressure when not on my medication is enough to send most e.r. docs into a frenzy, my sperm count is lamentable and my gyno would make any 14 year old girl jealous as all hell. I've got hair growing where no man should have hair and more joint aches and pains than I can tell you about.
All in all I did myself the greatest injustice imaginable by turning to the darkside. Its just not worth it.
No matter who you are, no matter how hard you train, no matter how much you love to train you will, at some point come to a crossroads in your life where lifting and being huge take a backseat to just being there for your loved ones - who don’t really care what kind of shape your in or how shredded you are. For them, like my daughter for example, its more important that I'm there to share in her life than whether or not I have 21 inch arms and a visible 6 pack.
All you youngins out there that are doing your research and contemplating making the jump from natural lifter to gearhead take heed. While the gear will give you speedy results the price for those results is too great to bear. One day you'll look back, as I'm doing and realize the mistake you've made.
I'd do anything to spare you that realization. Take it from me. Learn from my mistake. Stay clean and just put in the work. Its worth it.
Mikey
Always remember, slow and steady wins the day.
Michael Sztym, "Old Dawg"
Related article by same author - Staying Natural
Natural Bodybuilding at its Finest - Lift for Life.com
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