Underground Tap
Steroid freaks from around the world
by Ron Harris

Installment 5 — The man from LA

Los Angeles, California, is known as the "Mecca" of bodybuilding and, as such, it is also the world's capital of steroid use. Thousands of muscleheads, from Arnold to the lowliest Mr. Podunk winner hoping for superstardom, have strutted their androgen-pumped physiques under the baking Southern California sun. The subject of this interview is a native Angeleno who's been deeply entrenched in the steroid subculture for nearly 15 years. He has trained alongside some of the greatest bodybuilders who have made their marks in the gyms of Venice Beach, the San Gabriel Valley, and Orange County. Although he's not a major celebrity in the physique world, having concentrated more on business ventures than competing in the past seven years, he is, nonetheless, well known throughout the Los Angeles area by anyone who has been involved in bodybuilding for any length of time. And when it comes to steroids, he's had (and continues to have) a level of access that would make the average user green with envy. Without further ado, let's meet this man from LA and learn what it's been like to be connected to the 'roid scene in the Mecca.

T: How were you first exposed to steroids? How old were you, and what were the circumstances?

LA: It was 1985, and I was 21 years old. I overheard some of the really big guys at the gym talking about this doctor in San Gabriel who was giving them steroids. I won't name him, because he still practices, but he's very well known. There was also Dr. Jekot on the West Side, and this guy who everyone from the San Gabriel Valley and Orange County went to. He actually wrote an "underground" steroid book before Duchaine. I had been training for two years naturally, and went from 110 to 130 pounds naturally at 5'6" tall. I wanted to be much bigger than that. I got an appointment with the doctor, and that's how it all started.

T: What was your first cycle, and what kind of gains did you make?

LA: My first cycle was two tablets of Anadrol-50 a day, every day for an entire year straight. Can you believe that? Of course, I knew nothing back then. The doctor kept refilling the prescription, so I just kept on with the course. I went from 130 to 160 almost overnight. In the first couple of months, I was getting bigger and stronger every day. In just the first four weeks, my bench went from 95 pounds to 185 pounds. Everybody noticed that I was growing, but nobody thought I was on drugs. I was still a little guy, at that point. People think all steroid users are the size of comic-book superheroes. Eventually, I started getting smaller and weaker. Little did I know that I had shut down my receptors by using the same item for too long.

T: When you first began using steroids, how were the prices and availability different from today's market?

LA: Stuff was easy to get from doctors back then, and fairly cheap. Actually, I've been around so long and have so many contacts that I've never had a problem getting a hold of anything. I figured out pretty quickly that buying on the black market was much less expensive than going through the doctors. But as far as prices? They've all pretty much gone up about three to five times from what they were when I started out. One hundred tabs of Anavar used to be 25 bucks. They're 150 to 200 bucks, now. The doctor used to sell me 200-mg amps of Deca for three bucks. Soon, I was buying them direct from someone else for two bucks, and reselling them for 15 to 20 bucks. Now, a bottle of Deca goes for 30 bucks.

T: So, you became a steroid dealer?

LA: I wouldn't say that I was a dealer. I basically only sold enough to support my own habit and supplement my income a little bit. I really just took care of my friends. There was this hotel in Tijuana called the Fiesta Americana that all of the LA guys would go down to. You'd see a lot of out-of-state guys, too, mostly powerlifters — big, hillbilly-looking fuckers. It was straight out of a movie. You'd go up to a suite, room 716, and knock this special knock. A big, Mafia-type guy with muscles would answer the door, and you had to tell him a certain code word or name. Behind him was an architect at a table, pretending to design some shit or something. It was a front. The Mafia guy, or whatever he was, would come back with a big menu, nice and laminated, with everything you could ever want listed. There had to be over 200 items. You'd tell him what you wanted, and he would take off for 15 to 30 minutes. By the time he got back, there would be other guys waiting in the hall to get in. I used to leave with grocery bags full of stuff.

T: How did that all come to an end?

LA: All good things have to end, and I'm just lucky that I wasn't there when it all went down. I used to get the money together from all my friends and go down about every other weekend. One day, a few of my buddies decided to skip the middle man — me — to save some cash. They had the shit luck of being in the suite when the Federales busted down the door with M-16s and took everyone in. Something was going on between the US government and Mexico at the time to crack down on steroids. Two of the guys were regular size and scared to death, so they were let go. The third guy was pretty big, and he had a smart mouth. They confiscated his car and held him in some toilet of a jail in Tijuana for a week until his family paid them off to let him go. Right after that, the big bust of the LA ring happened, and that was the end of the easy days. That's when the laws changed. After the hotel situation was over, guys just went directly to the pharmacies. But that was risky. Sometimes, the pharmacists would tip off the border guys after a big buy. That way, they kept your money, and they got their stuff back, too. Nice, huh?

T: Were you ever busted?

LA: No, but I got closer than I ever wanted to. I was living in the back house of a dentist's mansion. It was a Monday morning after I had gone to TJ. I had a few grand worth of stuff that I had picked up. It was sunrise, about 5am, when I heard people on the roof and helicopters overhead. I looked out the window and saw all of these SWAT guys running around. I just about had a heart attack. I panicked and told my wife at the time to hide all of the shit. We flushed all of the orals and hid the injectables as best we could. An officer knocked on the door and questioned me about how long I had been living there and my relationship to the dentist. They were looking around sort of casually, but I had hidden everything pretty well. It turned out that the dentist was a big coke dealer. He went to jail.

T: What about getting ripped off?

LA: I used to buy from this guy in Venice who I knew from Gold's. Every week to ten days, I'd get anywhere from two to ten grand worth of stuff from him. I had about ten or twelve transactions with him that went fine. The last time, I gave him almost five thousand bucks. He would always leave and come back in about 15 minutes with the stuff, only this time he didn't come back. I paged him again and again, but he never called back. It ended up that he had met with a few people that day and done the same thing. I sent a couple of guys that I knew over to his place to break his arms, but he had already left for the East Coast. I also used to buy a lot of fake stuff in the early days when I didn't know any better.

Actually, the worst hit I ever took was a total accident. I used to have this big Cheetos can that I had made into a safe. Inside were three thousand bucks cash and at least seven grand worth of drugs. It was literally packed to the brim, and then some. My stepdaughter was cleaning one day and threw it out. Granted, she didn't know what it was, but it weighed a ton! By the time I noticed it was gone, the trash had already been picked up. I never saw it again. That really sucked. I couldn't even look at her for a week.

T: If you were just starting out today, what would you have done differently with the drugs?

LA: All of my cycles would have been made up of smaller dosages. I'm much more educated now as to what works best for size, cutting up, etc. When I started, I thought that all steroids were the same. I got up to 216 with hard training, which was good for someone with such a tiny frame as me, but I looked like a little donut. I really didn't know much about proper nutrition. Shit, I used to eat a big bucket of fried chicken every day for lunch! I was also using too much test and holding more water than the Hoover Dam. Now I stay away from test, for the most part. I already had an acne problem, even before bodybuilding, and the test exacerbated it to a disgusting level. Test is also really hard on the prostate.

T: What are your favorite items, and why?

LA: I love Deca Durabolin. It's a safe drug, and you can stay on it a long time without having to worry too much. Test suspension is also great. It's very fast-acting, and it can work like Winstrol if you eat clean. It's also incredible for strength. Powerlifters cream in their jeans when you talk about suspension. It's been very hard to get these past few years. I just scored some the weekend of the USA. Let's see, Anavar is excellent for getting really hard and vascular. You can also use it in an off-season stack for size. I always loved the gains that I got from Anadrol-50, but it's just too damn toxic. Now I only use it pre-contest for vascularity. That and Halotestin are the best to stack in just the last ten days to get really full and vascular.

T: What was your most outrageous stack, and did it give you the best results?

LA: The best shape of my life, where I was full and hard as nails, was this:

Weekly
•?Deca Durabolin, 400 mg
•?Testosterone Cypionate, 200 mg

Daily
•?Ten Anavar
•?One Cytomel T-3
•?One Synthroid T-4
•?Four Nolvadex

Three times weekly
•?Finajet, 1 cc
•?Equipoise, 1 cc
•?Winstrol, 1 cc
•?B-12 Liver Complex, 2 cc
•?Four tabs Melanadina (prescription tanning pills for albinos)

Fourteen days out, I dropped the injectables and took one Anadrol-50, one Halotestin, and ten Anavar a day. It's not much by Mr. Olympia standards, but it worked very well for me.

T: How did things change when steroids became a controlled substance?

LA: Prices went up, and you saw a lot of fake shit all of a sudden. The worst thing was that the new generation of dealers was scandalous. You couldn't trust them. The older generation had more integrity.

T: What are some of the side effects that you have experienced, both physical and psychological?

LA: I had gyno the size of a small lemon that was taken out, but then I needed two more surgeries to remove blood clots that had formed. I had an abscess on my glute the size of a baseball. I was in denial for a while, thinking it was some Winstrol or suspension that hadn't dissolved. One day, I could barely walk. Even though I was lean, there was cellulite on that one leg and a red line running up and down. I finally cracked and saw a doctor. He said the infection was so bad that I might've died if I had waited another day. I also had an abscess removed from my asshole. I really would prefer to forget about that experience. As far as mental side effects, there were some road rage incidents when I was in my early twenties, that's all. I was sort of short-tempered, but now I'm much more easygoing. That comes with maturity. You control the aggression much better.

T: What measures do you take to ensure your health?

LA: I have full blood panels done every three months. I take lots of minerals and aminos. It's a formula given to me from that doctor in San Gabriel to cleanse the liver and kidneys and counteract the damaging side effects of the drugs. I honestly believe that it works. Also, I use much smaller dosages now than in the past, and I try to take more time off between cycles — about six weeks.

T: Do you ever get approached from people who want to start using steroids? How do you treat that situation?

LA: I'm approached all the time, and I totally discourage them. I love this sport, but I would beat my kid's ass if they wanted to be a bodybuilder. I have a passion for it, but it's very unhealthy, and there are too many scumbags around. Very few of the people that I've met have any loyalty or integrity. Bodybuilding is full of scammers and shysters.

T: In your opinion, what are the most underrated and overrated drugs?

LA: Andriol is supposed to be fast-acting and safe, but it doesn't do shit. Even lame andro products and aminos work better. A really underrated drug is Laurabolin-50, the veterinary Deca from Mexico. People think that anything from Mexico is trash, But Laurabolin is cheap, it's always real, and it works. With so much fake Deca, and for the price you pay for real human Deca, Laurabolin is about the smartest thing to buy. Also, like I said before, test suspension is the bomb. All of the old-school guys know about it and love it.

T: Can you give an example of what you consider an optimum stack for off-season mass-building, and also for contest preparation?

LA: Sure:

Off-season weeks 1-6
•?Test Suspension or Enanthate, 400 mg once a week
•?Deca Durabolin, 200 mg once a week
•?Five Dianabol, daily
•?Serostim (GH), 2 iu total each day for three injections
•?Two to four Nolvadex, daily
•?One Cytomel (accelerates the action of GH), daily

Off-season weeks 7-12
•?Test Suspension or Enanthate, 400 mg once a week
•?Deca Durabolin, 400-600 mg once a week
•?One Anadrol-50, every other day
•?Serostim (GH), 4 iu total each day for three injections
•?Two to four Nolvadex, daily
•?One Cytomel (accelerates the action of GH), daily

Pre-contest weeks 1-6
•?Deca Durabolin, 200-400 mg once a week
•?Winstrol-V, 1 cc Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
•?Five Anavar tabs, daily
•?Five Winstrol tabs, daily
•?Two Nolvadex, daily
•?One Cytomel, daily
•?Serostim, 2 iu total over three injections, daily

Pre-contest weeks 7-12
•?Deca Durabolin, 400-600 mg once a week
•?Winstrol-V, 1 cc Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
•?Ten Anavar tabs, daily
•?Ten Winstrol tabs, daily
•?Two Nolvadex, daily
•?Two Cytomel, daily
•?Serostim, 4 iu total over three injections, daily
•?One Anadrol-50, daily
•?Two Halotestin, daily

T: What's your opinion on the current level of drug use by the top pros and amateurs?

LA: It's crazy. I couldn't imagine using that much. But, then again, that's their job to look like freaks. There's no way you can look like that otherwise. I was over at a dealer's house one time and he had about $40,000 worth of growth hormone. It was all for one guy, a certain blonde pro who had his heyday in the late '80s. There was this one Italian guy from San Francisco, who got eventually deported, who used to fly around and drop off entire suitcases full of shit to the pros. I knew guys who would shoot 10 cc of test every other day, and 18 iu of growth a day. Retail, that's 300 bucks a day just for the growth. Where do they get that kind of money? The guys look like cartoons now, but some of them are starting to die young.

T: How easy is it for you to get whatever items you want, and how much money would you estimate that you've spent total on drugs since you've been bodybuilding?

LA: Whatever I need is always just a phone call away. I've probably only spent between $50,000 and $75,000, but that's because I know the right people and they don't charge me much of a markup. The regular guy would have paid at least twice to three times as much for what I've bought.

T: Do you take time off, and do you find it tough to go through the "down" cycle of losing size and strength?

LA: I take about five or six weeks off after a 12-week cycle. I'm fine for the first three weeks. After that, it gets very tough, mentally. I start losing size and fullness, and I get softer. I still train hard and eat clean but, inevitably, I start to get a little spare tire around the middle. That's the worst.

T: What do you think are the most common mistakes that people make when taking gear, and what mistakes have you made that you learned from?

LA: Listening to too many people in the gym rather than going to one knowledgeable person. A huge mistake is taking too much of the same thing for too long. Your receptors shut right down. Not using Nolvadex — I started using it too late. Too many people think that gyno can't happen to them. For me, I should have taken more time off. In the early days, my diet was the missing link. I was training right and on the right stuff, but I looked like a little donut because I was eating fried chicken, burritos, and mashed potatoes all day.

T: Do you consider yourself a good or bad responder to gear?

LA: Good responder. Genetics are always the bottom line. I have a very small structure and had to fight for every ounce of muscle. For some, it comes easy. Shit, Vic Richards was competing at 225 when he was 17 years old. In the early days, I thought that I would be a pro. I won my first two shows, and all of the judges and some of the pros were telling me that I would go far in the sport. I was told that if all I did was eat, sleep, and train, I could be one of the best. I did that for two years. At the end, I did the Cal. I broke the bank and spent ten grand for that show — and didn't win. That's when I said, fuck this. I'm a good businessman, and I could see that the tunnel-vision bodybuilding lifestyle was keeping me from succeeding. I wanted a better lifestyle — a nice house, a couple of nice cars, and money in the bank. Now, I'm happy with my physique and have a very decent lifestyle. I can still jump in a big show and do well. I like that kind of balance.

T: Thanks for your time and candor.

LA: You're quite welcome.

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