Jamie Mantzouridis, now a nutritionist and online personal trainer, vividly recalls the moment he decided to quit steroids. Four years ago, while in a bathtub, he felt dizzy and feared he might collapse. He rushed to get sugar, realizing the danger of the insulin he was taking. 'I thought: This is fucked. What am I doing to myself?' he says. He stopped that day.
Early steroid use and peer pressure
Mantzouridis, who was small and self-conscious growing up, started training seriously in his early 20s. He noticed other gym-goers who were much larger and learned they were using steroids. 'They looked really good,' he recalls. At 21, he decided to try trenbolone, a powerful compound developed for cattle and one of the harshest anabolics available. He says obtaining it was easy: 'All you need to do is ask the biggest guy in the gym.'
Visible results and side effects
Within a year, the results were visible, but so were the side effects. Acne spread across his back and chest, bad enough that he stopped wanting to remove his shirt. A routine injection went wrong when the needle hit the wrong muscle and became infected. He spent a week in hospital on antibiotics. 'They said I was lucky that they didn't have to cut tissue out of your leg,' he says. He lied to his mother about the cause, but she didn't believe him after speaking to doctors.
Escalation to growth hormones and insulin
Despite the scare, Mantzouridis continued. Over the next few years, he experimented with growth hormones and insulin, a drug meant for diabetics but used off-label by bodybuilders to push carbohydrates into muscles. Insulin can send a healthy person into a hypoglycaemic coma. 'Short-term, it's incredibly dangerous,' he says. 'Long-term, anabolics are worse. You just don't see the damage straight away.'
The turning point and aftermath
The turning point came in the bathtub four years ago. The dizziness and fear of collapse prompted him to quit. Now 29, Mantzouridis works as a nutritionist and online personal trainer. He highlights the pressure on men regarding body image, partly due to social media. 'Everyone believes they're meant to look a certain way,' he says. 'That someone successful has a Ferrari and a six-pack. Some people will never achieve that, and it stops you acknowledging what you have achieved.'
