Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Are Steroids a Social Problem, or Just Sport’s Problem?

Currently, performance-enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids, HGH, and even over-the-counter supplements, have come under fire through congressional hearings and public debate, as evidenced by the fallout from the Mitchell Report. There are two divisive sides to this issue; on one hand there are the purists who claim that any use of performance-enhancing drugs taints the sport and is a slap in the face to the heroes and records of the past. This side of the argument suggests that any records broken during the steroid era be stricken from the book, while also advocating frequent random drug testing and severe penalties for violators. The opposition, whom I have talked at length about this issue, believes that performance-enhancing drugs make sports more exciting to watch. The supporters of this viewpoint even include college-level athletes, such as Cal water polo player Charles Steffens who has gone on written record and said, “I have one wish...that all sports allow steroids it would be more exciting” (Weblog entry, date unknown). They see athletics as being primarily about the fans and their enjoyment first and foremost. They prefer to see the spectacle provided by longer home runs and harder tackles. The Mitchell Report, the United States Congress, and those who hold authority in every major athletic league, all the way from minor league baseball to the International Olympic Committee, agree, with varying strengths of opinion, that performance-enhancing drugs are tearing sports apart at the seams and are the greatest foe modern athletics has ever faced. The use of performance-enhancing drugs makes the playing field uneven and is therefore cheating, that much is certain. But what about the athletes who use them? They must live with both the short-term and long-term consequences of their actions, and their trials and tribulations are the ignored story in this saga. Their decision to employ questionable methods to excel is much more complex, as they must live with the physical and mental problems brought on by steroid abuse and the strain put on their reputation and the relationships with those close to them. Drug use in sports is a subject that has been discussed extensively in the media and sports circles lately, however it has also been considered as an issue in other mediums, including fiction.

This can be seen further in Swanick and Gibson’s Dogfight, where Deke uses a performance-enhancing drug known as “hype” to aid him in his challenge of Tiny in the game Spads&Fokkers. Deke suffers adverse physical reactions, endures mental anguish, taints his reputation, and destroys his relationship with Nance as a result of his drug use. The game of Spads&Fokkers will continue on unchanged after Deke’s decision to use performance-enhancing drugs, but his own life is in shambles. This fits in with the overall pattern of the individual athletes being the ones most strongly affected by steroid use. Abusers are cheating at the game, but more importantly they are robbing themselves of physical and mental soundness, positive relationships, and a respectable reputation. This is why the concern of the public should be directed at stopping steroid use for the sake of the athletes, not for the game.

Although both are important, it is the human individual who must be looked after, especially because in most cases the athletes who abuse have little or no choice in their own mind whether or not to abuse. Athletes who choose to engage in the use of performance-enhancing drugs do so not because they enjoy cheating but because of the ingrained societal pressures to win, and in this case at all costs. According to Johan Huizinga, a Dutch academic who wrote on cultural history, “Winning means showing oneself superior in the outcome of a game. He has won esteem, obtained honour”(Huizinga 50). It is easy to see why these high level athletes, who have been wrapped up in the cocoon of their sport since childhood, would be willing to risk it all by using performance-enhancing drugs to achieve the aforementioned esteem. But if the international governing bodies of sport are so convinced that steroids are a scourge and must be done away with, why aren’t there stricter policies, more frequent random tests, and harsher punishments for infractions? The answer lies with the group of people who enjoy sports for the spectacle of almost superhuman plays brought on by steroid use, instead of being concerned with the tradition and fairness of the game. These people are not so much concerned with the integrity of the game and its players, but with their own viewing experience. As Huizinga says, “Success readily won passes from the individual to the group”(Huizinga 50). A nation likes to have its heroes who they can point to and can identify with. These athletes serve as an admirable representation and extension of their society. These same people do not want to be confronted with the possibility of dishonesty and unethical training methods. This can be seen in many cases, such as the East German women’s Olympic swim team, whose athletes were essentially forced to take anabolic steroids, leading to horrific consequences. The women exhibited many side effects of steroid use such as the development of masculine features including facial hair and deep voices, most also became infertile. More importantly however, they had to live with the social stigma of having cheated in the Olympics (CBC Sports, http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/drugs/stories/top10.html#5). The athletes had their life altered irreparably, and it is they whom we as a society should be worried about first and foremost before we sympathize with fist-pounding speeches by aging commissioners about how steroids are ruining their sport.

In Dogfight, Deke also faces adverse physical reactions to “hype”. The reaction his body has to this fictional drug is similar to many performance-enhancers used today. First, he feels the physical lift that the drug gives him, his reflexes become sharpened and his mind is clear. “Deke summoned Jackman’s elevator with a finger that moved as fast and straight as a hornet and landed daintily as a butterfly on the call button. He was full of bouncing energy and it was all under control”(Swanick and Gibson, 161). Like most athletes who choose to abuse steroids, Deke is amazed by the initial results he sees, this is dangerous because it can lead athletes to take increased dosage and maybe even stop strictly regulating or cycling their use. The nature of steroids is such that it takes longer for the side effects to kick in than it does for the results and this causes many abusers to do irreparable damage to their body before they even realize that something has gone wrong. In Deke’s case he is aware of the negative physical reaction that many have to “the hype” so he is prepared for it. “But Deke had done his homework. He was expecting the hallucinations and knew he could deal with them. The military would never pass on a drug that couldn’t be fought through”(164). Here Deke makes a common mistake among steroid users, he assumes the quality of the substance he is using. Many athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs see the benefit someone else is getting and so they decide to try it thinking that the steroids they get will be of the same caliber. However, this is not true as most steroids being used by Americans today are illegally brought up through Mexico and are veterinary-grade, never meant to be used by humans. The physical reaction is the most basic and common one to steroids, but unfortunately it is often the most dangerous one as well.

Hype is a fictional performance-enhancer, but it might as well be real given the pattern of usage and the results Deke gets. Hype is most reminiscent of baseball players using amphetamines to boost their speed and reactions in the 1960’s (http://thejuice.baseballtoaster.com/archives/873976.html). These two performance-enhancers both appear to be very poorly regulated and have severe adverse physical reactions, making them all the more dangerous.

Mental reactions to steroids are often intertwined with the physical ones because a performance-enhancing drug changes the body’s chemistry. The hallucinations Deke experiences during his game with Tiny are also a mental response to “the hype”. The biggest mental issue associated with steroids is “roid rage”, a slang term for the increased irritability and untriggered anger experienced by an abuser. One of Deke’s uncharacteristic bouts of anger occurs before his actual use of “the hype” but we can still consider this a mental side effect of performance-enhancing drugs because if it were not for the existence of “the hype”, Deke would never have acted that way towards Nance. “Deke felt revolted and nauseated, all the more so because on some unexpected and unwelcome level, he was enjoying this”(161).

Deke is the perfect example of someone who throws away his relationship with the person closest to him as a direct result of his performance-enhancing drug use. He allows himself to be so caught up in the culture of winning; it becomes almost a biological need that is brought on by social needs and expectations. As Huizinga says, “From the life of childhood right up to the highest achievements of civilization one of the strongest incentives to perfection. Is the desire to be praised and honoured for one’s excellence”(Huizinga 63). Our society has made the need to win so ingrained that we judge our own self-worth off this idea. For an athlete whose whole life is their sport, their entire concept of self is based on being a winner (Winning Clearly on Clemens’s Mind, Jason Stark). If they begin to falter, it is very likely that they would turn to performance-enhancing drugs believing that is the only way they can realize their full potential. Thus, steroids are not so much a sports problem as they are a social one. We as a society have chosen what we want to value, i.e. winning, that we have indirectly chosen to support, albeit subtly and often unconsciously, the acceptability of steroids. Of course we proclaim the evils of performance-enhancing drugs and we are all aware of the dangers, but it is our values that encourage athletes to walk down this path.

The only way the steroid era will end and this problem will be solved is if society can make a firm distinction between wanting to win and being willing to do anything to get to that point. This by no means is suggesting that we should not value winners and competition, after all that is how people have always found out what they are really made of. That is one reason why Huizinga refers to play as a civilizing function. We just need to put the proverbial foot down and say that this is unacceptable and we want victory with honor, or not at all. This is for the sake of the integrity of our sports but more importantly for the safety of our athletes, because as Huizinga made clear they represent and are an extension of us as a society.