Q. How did you get involved with steroids and the whole California bodybuilding scene?
I moved from Minneapolis to California in 1981 after winning the Teenage Mr. Minnesota. I had dreams of becoming a professional bodybuilder because I had good genetics for bodybuilding. I competed so much they used to call me the “trophy hunter.”
I knew about the drugs when I went to California but up until the time I moved there I was natural. I began training for the Mr. Western USA contest and it was at that time that I met Dan Duchaine. He gave me a lot of pointers on how to prepare for that show. Things like how to reduce body fat and increase vascularity. I was 20-years-old and it was then that I went on my first drug cycle. I used Deca-durabolin and some Anavar. I won the competition and that spurred me on.
I took another cycle when I trained for the Mr. USA in Las Vegas. I almost died training for that show from the misuse of LASIX. So by the time I was 22, I was totally burned out from competition and I just quit competing.
But by that time, because of my curiosity and personal research, I had developed some tremendous knowledge on my own about the use of androgenic/anabolic chemicals for bodybuilding. There was a lot of open talk back then at Gold’s Gym about the drugs and I was getting to be known as some sort of an expert in anabolic stacking. The thing I remember most about that time is that the competitive bodybuilders would have done just about anything to look better. I even did my own survey where I asked the gym members if they could take steroids and win Mr. Olympia but would knock 20 years off of their life, would they still do it? Eighty-five percent said they would. That’s how screwed up their thinking was to achieve instant gratification for fame.
Q. So how did you go from being a drug-using competitor with a lot of knowledge about performance-enhancing drugs to actually helping other bodybuilders with their drug programs?
I was employed at an allergy testing clinic doing leukocyte antigen sensitivity testing — a high tech cyto-toxic test. When the bodybuilders at the gym found they could get blood work done, they started coming to me to monitor them. And because of what I believed then was my extensive knowledge on how to use the drugs safely and correctly, I wanted to help these other bodybuilders use them safely without ruining their liver and kidneys.
I eventually broke away from that clinic and started my own practice in Canoga Park, California called L.A.S.T.(Leukocyte Antigen Sensitivity Testing) allergy clinic. Now this gave me direct access to the laboratory for doing blood work. I wasn’t prescribing anyone steroids. I was just helping them monitor their health.
I eventually learned how to do anabolic/androgenic arrays which led to my customizing various drug programs for some pro bodybuilders. Things really took off for me when I helped a very famous pro bodybuilder prepare for the New York Grand Prix show — which he subsequently won. He looked so fantastic that the word spread that I had helped him prepare. I knew how to formulate these arrays based on their metabolic typing, their oxidation rate, how fast they burn calories, blood work, liver and kidney function, and receptor mapping which is body temperature mapping. It was all very cutting-edge for that time. Dan and I were the only ones doing anything this sophisticated. My clinic went from young kids and old ladies to 270-pound bodybuilders.
All of this work with the pros also gave me a chance to experiment and find out what worked best. In fact, I learned more from them than they learned from me. We even started to experiment with an injectible cosmetic drug from France that makes the muscles temporarily puff up. I was becoming obsessed — studying, researching, working with the pros. Studying endocrinology. It was the equivalent of a triple Ph.D.
Q. Were the drugs being used year-round back in those days?
Stacking was already a big thing and a lot of them knew that they needed to take a break after eight weeks especially since their gonads would start hypertrophying.
Q. How did the bodybuilders get their drugs?
Things were wide open back then. The drugs were as easy as getting candy from a candy store and you could obtain them from just about any gym steroid peddler. I could even order them directly from the manufacturers. There were also veterinary grade steroids available.
Q. Is it true that you also helped some of the bodybuilders beat the drug tests?
Yes — when some of the organizations started drug testing, I figured out ways to beat the tests. I learned what drugs to take and how to take them in order to beat the tests. I was paid big money for showing bodybuilders how to beat the tests by switching to water soluble steroids. Remember, since steroids were not illegal in those days, technically I wasn’t breaking any laws. I had no guilt and I really felt I was helping these athletes.
Q. What kind of side effects were you concerned with in those days?
Well, like I said, there was shrinking of the testicles. I also saw manic behavior — what we now call Roid Rage. One time I actually saw Lyle Alzado smash a car window and pull the driver right through the broken glass. There definitely was a psychological and emotional roller coaster ride. That’s because you’re dealing with hormones that affect serotonin and other brain neurotransmitters that affect mood. There would be severe depression almost to the point of suicide. Sometimes for no reason, there would be a psychological crash. This is linked to the types of drugs taken and the amounts used. I found in my research that the androgenic dominant drugs were the ones that would affect depression.
Q. Were they using things like thyroid, speed and other non-anabolics too?
Absolutely! They used everything they could get their hands on that they felt would improve their chances of winning.
Q. What would happen to them between cycles?
A lot of these guys would start getting scared because when they stopped they lost their strength, got severe joint pains, edema, they lost their vascularity, and they got soft. So psychologically they needed to get back on the drugs. And so you are dealing with psychological addiction because these guys would look in the mirror while their on the drugs and they see one thing and when they go off them, they look in the mirror and see something completely different. Some even got to looking like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. They just can’t handle that. And then, like Lyle Alzado, they just can’t ever get off. Lyle was on them for four to five years straight. Their psychological dependance kept them from ever getting off the drugs.
The longer you stay on them you eventually have to take double the dosage, then triple and then they can even reach a point where they don’t work at all anymore. And every time they double the dosage the risks are increased not double but four-fold. At this point the damage to the liver can be catastrophic.
Q. What do you see as the biggest danger to using performance-enhancing drugs?
Let me explain it this way. None of the body’s hormones work separately. They actually work in concert like an orchestra. You cannot take testosterone or some other sort of anabolic agent without affecting leutenizing hormone, FSH, thyroxin, DHEA, cortisol, estrogen, DHT and so forth. They all work together and taking one affects the others. No person on earth has the knowledge to keep them all in balance while using pharmaceutical drugs. Like an orchestra, your body has a conductor and that’s the pituitary gland, and that conductor regulates 22 different “hormonal instruments.” The pituitary gland conductor keeps all of the musicians in balance. If you jack up the cello or violin, you throw everything else off. You ruin the symphony. And it’s the same thing with the endocrine system. When you manipulate testosterone artificially, you throw off all of the other hormones. Then you need to take another hormone to balance that out and before you know it, you’ve begun a vicious cycle. I guess that’s a pun, isn’t it?
As I said above, liver damage is a serious problem. Remember, the liver does 500 different processes. Once the liver is damaged, you’re going to have blood sugar problems, hormonal problems because the liver regulates hormones, blood toxemia problems, uric acid problems. On my blood arrays of the bodybuilders, I used to see liver counts called LDH, SGOT, SGPT, and Alkaline Phosphate that compared to alcoholics — like someone drinking hard liquor for 20 years or more. I would see SGOTs and SGPTs over 500 — well over the normal range. I worked with Lyle Alzado in 1985 and his liver count was over 600. This is the kind of thing that eventually leads to hepatitis, cirrhosis, scar tissue, cancer, you name it.
Also, much of the damage that is being done is long-term — ten years or more out. No blood test in the world can pick that up. These so-called experts today that say there are minimum dangers just don’t know what they are talking about. What they’re sweeping under the rug is an elephant.
For a teenager to use these drugs is pure insanity. Since their bodies are adjusting to and already producing large amounts of hormones naturally, taking exogenous drugs will shut down their own production of testosterone and just screw up that balance I spoke about earlier. These kids can be looking at long-term, non-reversible consequences such as sterility.
There is just no such thing as a safe dosage because you are manipulating hormonal processes. The body needs to produce its own hormones naturally — not artificially. When you introduce a synthetic hormone into the body it really is a “sin.” You’re manipulating hormones and not modulating them — and there’s a world of difference.
Q. At some point in the middle of all your involvement, you actually began supplying drugs for distribution. Tell me how that came about.
That was in 1984. Since I had access to all of the suppliers because of my clinic, I friend came to me and asked if I could actually get him large quantities of the drugs. I picked up the phone, called the company, asked what their quantity limits were and they said they didn’t have any. So I ordered 3,000 vials of injectible steroids for this person. I never asked him what he intended to do with them or how he was going to distribute them. I just looked at it as quick money on the side that I could use for my research and to expand my clinic. The drug companies even gave me a 30-day billing cycle. He moved it so quickly that a week later he needed 5,000 vials. Remember, they were not illegal then and the government didn’t even know about steroid use and abuse, or the big dollars that were being made at that time. However, what we were doing was illegal because these drugs required a prescription through a licensed physician and of course, we weren’t bothering with that. In addition, when you start ordering such large amounts, you really become a pharmaceutical house and you need a distribution license.
The demand started to get so out of hand that he was continuously upping the orders. I was supplying all kinds of drugs by now, even drugs from Europe, and a regular national steroid ring was developing out of San Diego. We became the largest steroid ring in the country. The guys buying from me printed up a price list and sent it to every Gold’s Gym, every Powerhouse Gym and every World Gym. They even gave discounts for quantity orders. And it was all coming from out of my clinic. There were actually times when I was sent overnight, $100,000 cash in a shoebox. By then I was getting to be high profile and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) started monitoring me. It was also getting scary because some people weren’t paying their bills and there were threats made. So I actually quit supplying and then these guys went and found their own outside source.
When it finally hit the fan in 1988, 16 of the 32 indictments mentioned my name as having started this ring. I got scared, left the clinic and went on the run for a year with a half million dollars in a suitcase. I had U.S. Customs and DEA looking all over for me. They finally picked me up in Arizona. I did nine months in jail waiting for my trial.
Q. So how did you go from steroid pusher to fleeing criminal to jail inmate to finally putting your life back together again?
When I was in jail for nine months, I started getting religiously witnessed to by many of the inmates. I remember telling all of them that I didn’t need Jesus or religion as a crutch and I kept pushing them away. Finally, in disgust, I set out to disprove the Bible to one of my cellmates. I was determined to show him that the Bible was false and that it was just a man-made book. I had plenty of time to do this. I spent up to nine hours a day studying the Bible. Eventually, a strange thing happened. I started to see that I couldn’t disprove it and things actually fit together like a glove. I literally dropped to my knees at that point and asked God’s forgiveness for trying to disprove His word. Something told me that God was changing me and that I would someday use all of this knowledge that I had in a positive way. That’s what eventually led to my becoming a natural health practitioner. Now, thankfully, I use my God-given talents to help people rather than to harm them.
I was looking at a 250-year prison sentence — five years prison time for each of 50 counts. I eventually struck a plea bargain with the prosecutor for a 12-year sentence but I got a judge who was so intrigued by this high-profile case that he was very inquisitive. He asked why someone with my intelligence got caught up in such illicit activities. He wanted to know what I would do if I were released. I said I would probably start speaking on the dangers of steroids in high schools all over the country. He hesitated a while and then said he was going to let me go on just the time served — nine months. He warned me that if I ever got involved in this or any other illegal activity again he personally would see to it that I was put away for a long, long time. Maybe he’ll get to see this book and know that I’m staying true to my word.
Q. Do you see any circumstances today where a bodybuilder could or should use performance-enhancing drugs?
Absolutely not! I’ll say it again. There is no way for bodybuilders to take steroids safely. Let me end by warning your readers that once they start fooling around with anabolic steroids and other bodybuilding drugs, they are really playing a high-stakes game with their health. I was right in the middle of it all. I know what I’m talking about.
“I went on the run with a