WEBVTT - New Normal 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:13.000 This is making me anxious. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:19.560 Belly take a pinch of belly fat. Jam this fucker in. 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:22.160 Oh there it goes. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:25.759 All right, needles in. 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:27.200 Do you feel pressure? 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:28.680 Nah? 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.320 Just the initial poke. This part sucks. So I'm injecting 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.599 really slowly. Uh huh depressing the plunger. 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:38.560 Why do you think go slow? 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:41.720 Just it hurts lass? Okay. 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.879 Chris and I are in my apartment in Brooklyn, and 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.080 for the podcast You Know Research, I asked Chris to 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.280 show me how he administers his weekly shot of n 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.240 D plus, a compound that he says gives him a 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.920 major boost of energy throughout the week and helps him 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.960 keep up with the demands of raising a four year old. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.120 Do you want to try it right now? All right? 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:03.320 Yeah it? 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.520 Do you have a Do you have a? 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:05.679 Oh? 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:06.520 I have another alcohol? 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.839 Okay, not our finest moment together, but for the record, 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.119 we didn't share needles. Chris had a separate, unused pen 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.480 with him and inside was another dose of n A 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:16.440 D plus. 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:17.720 So I'll set it up for you. 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:24.039 Off, put the needle in in your belly, I press it. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:26.080 Do you want to do it? 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:26.920 So? What you're gonna do? 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.080 Put the needle in? 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:29.240 How hard is the push. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:31.440 So the button is just a click button. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:32.720 Yeah. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.160 So take take a pinch of the belly fat like 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:36.520 like like really like pinch it. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:39.560 Yeah, and then you press the button. 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:51.160 Keeep it in there. One, two, three, four, five, perfect, seven, eight, nine, ten, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:51.720 Take it out. 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.040 You did it. That does feel weird. It's weird, right. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.800 What did you what did you feel this warm? 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.080 Mm hmm okay, confession time. I didn't really notice anything 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.040 change after I took the ana D injection. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:06.320 YEA. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.280 No boost of energy, no pep in my step, no 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.919 lightning recovery from my muy Thai sessions or my five 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:18.280 K runs. Nothing felt different. But these drugs, they're everywhere. 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.840 I see people all over the internet openly and eagerly 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.880 documenting the mix of performance enhancing drugs that they're experimenting with. 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:29.680 Each of these cocktails made of steroids or peptides or both. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.400 They call them stacks, like the Wolverine stack, which is 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.600 named for the comic book character, or the God stack, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.040 named for you know, God. But those recipes, the combination 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.520 of drugs, basically, they're endless. 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.240 Anovar are in testosterone update day ten one. 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.359 My libido is through the roof. 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.320 Two, My appetite is like sky high. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:54.400 I cannot stop. 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.240 Eating a lot of your casual gim bros are going 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.840 to say, hey, start off your cycle with your dianabal as. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.400 You're on testostrode and you're going to get big really quickly. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.200 The steroid that everyone swears is the nectar of the gods. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.520 Spoiler tremblone aka trend. We're really doing it boys. It's 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.000 not just a masculinity thing either. These drugs, they're for 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:12.560 women too. 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.000 I started with BPC one seven and I immediately fell 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.320 in love. Why because my hair grew an insane amount, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.360 my skin was glowing. It helps your gut health, and 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.440 when your gut health is happy, everything else is happy. Okay, 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.200 it's great for inflammation covery. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.960 These days, i'd say one in every three ads on 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.240 my social media feeds or for steroids or peptides or 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.320 some other exciting new drug. And the way they're marketed 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.840 to me, it's like a boardroom full of suits read 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.080 my diary and said let's invoke those specific insecurities like 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.880 too tired, unable to focus. There's a drug for that, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.840 and it cost one hundred and fifty dollars. Hair thinning, 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.720 hairline receding, there's a drug for that that cost one 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.120 hundred and fifty dollars. Too hungry yo yoing weight one 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.360 hundred and fifty dollars. The government is holding a mirror 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.480 up to this shift too. The Trump administration recently moved 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.120 to reclassify a long list of peptides so that they 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:10.120 can be manufactured in the US. And then there's the 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.960 Enhanced Games. At the first Enhanced Games, athletes will break 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.279 world records. When that happens, everyone's going to say what 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.680 is he on? And how do I get it? And 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.000 to enhance credit. Well, if nothing else right place right time, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.159 turning new fads into real revenue. What I want to 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.719 know is what happened? Why are people men especially so 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.000 eager to get in on this cultural shift. How is 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.200 it that enhanced knew this was the right moment to 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:43.560 appeal to the masses From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts, this 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:52.479 is superhuman. I'm Sam Egan. I'm going to reddit for 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.080 him our slash testosterone. When I noticed a guy named Aaron. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.480 He's in his late thirties and from the transformation photos 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.159 he's posting, I can see he's white with thirty blonde hair. Also, 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.240 from the photos, which spans six months, I can tell 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.839 he's lost a ton of weight, forty three pounds, he says. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.880 In his after pictures, Aaron's cheeks are sharper, his abs 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.000 are beginning to pop, and his shoulders look more to 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.800 fined sculpted. In the photos caption, Eron lists the contents 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.640 of his stack TRT two hundred milligrams right a true 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:29.760 tide between one milligram and twelve milligrams hCG parenthetical for fertility, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.920 clomofin parenthetical for fertility, one hundred and fifty to two 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:39.560 hundred grams protein parenthetical meat and clear protein drink, creatine powder, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:40.800 and el glutamine powder. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.320 So there was an ad that came out and it 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.720 showed a guy like snowboarding through the back country and 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.760 there's this like electronic music playing in the background, and 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.919 the overall tone of this was like futuristic cutting edge. 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.719 I reach out to Aaron to find out more about him, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.479 what he's working towards, and why. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:06.520 It positioned it as something new and something that will 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.400 obviously be ubiquitous in a few years, like the next 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:13.200 step in evolution. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:15.799 The first time we talk, Aaron's gone on a polo 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.720 shirt and an old school headset, like he's a telemarketer. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.159 Behind him is an empty white wall no windows. He 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.320 reminds me of one of the background brokers in the 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.760 Wolf of Wall Street. Aaron says he lives in Florida, 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.080 works in sales. You might be wondering how Aaron gets 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:33.000 most of these drugs. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.840 Getting it through a US distributor is something you only 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:41.719 do until you know enough to access labs directly in China. 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.839 A network of manufacturing labs outside the US, often in China, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.120 the gray market, selling directly to consumers, skipping the middleman entirely. 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.920 Here's the thing about these gray market drugs. Though they 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.440 aren't certified by the FDA, which is one the only 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.359 way to know for sure that what you're taking is 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:05.440 provably effective for its marketed purpose, two dose safely, and 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.480 three that only what's supposed to be in it is 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.320 on the gray market without an FDA, consumers need to 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.320 work around, and they find them. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.360 They get together in groups and do testing where they'll 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.720 order from a specific vendor and everyone will send a 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.360 sample to make sure that a vendor that this group 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.760 is accepting has. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.960 A legit product. Because these labs. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:38.000 They rely on their reputation in this group to sell 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:38.640 their product. 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.800 What strikes me about this system, the people buying the 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.000 drugs are doubling as the people ensuring the drugs efficacy 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.920 and its safety. They're literally paying to be the Labyretts. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.640 This market is such a new phenomena that it hasn't 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.240 gotten a ton of peer reviewed research yet. But one 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.200 recent test found that a vial of BPC one five seven, 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:04.080 a popular heptide, sold by an unregulated supplier, contained measurable 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:08.200 amounts of lead. Groups like Aaron's describing that they're the 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.680 one who's deciding to risk it and test drugs on themselves, 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.640 like they have to get lead poisoning to find out 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.680 that the product they're buying contains lead. So not great. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.320 What motivates a person to do this, to take such 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:23.720 risky gambles with their body. 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.800 My dad was your prototypical sports coach. He was very 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:31.600 serious about my training, and. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.280 Aaron says, in a past life he was an athlete, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.880 raised playing hockey, and however that shaped his body, his physique. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.920 That was a point of pride for his father. Maybe 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:43.920 two or three times a week when guests were over 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.840 at the house, He remembers hearing his dad call for him. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:48.959 I always knew the reason he was calling me. It's 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.719 because he wanted me to take my shirt off and 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.760 flex for his guests and show me off to his 0:08:55.559 --> 0:09:00.280 business partners or family friends or whoever. In retrospective, kind 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.160 of weird, having like a you know, twelve year old 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.520 kid take a shirt off and flex for everybody all the. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.360 Time kind of weird is one way to put it 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:10.880 the way Aaron talks about it, though, I think it 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.160 created a complex. No matter how fit he was when 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:15.360 he looked in the mirror. 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:20.000 I always saw something problematic no matter what weight I 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.280 was at. You know, if I was walking around at 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.720 one seventy or one seventy five, I might have felt 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.920 like my upper body popped out too much. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.720 By the time Aaron was in his teens, he'd moved 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.520 on from hockey. Now he was boxing. He competed all 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:38.480 through high school, but then dropped it when he went 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.040 off to college, and for a time he stayed reasonably fit, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.160 but then thirty hit. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.199 I had been like steadily gaining weight and getting more 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:49.160 and more out of shape. 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.240 And it wasn't just his aesthetics. Aaron was worried about. 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.800 It was his health. He says. At around that time 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.840 he developed scoliosis in his back, and maybe that's because 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.600 of the weight gain, maybe from an old spo orts injury. 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.120 Either way, he was in extreme pain, constantly sleeping maybe 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.400 three hours a night. After that, he stopped wanting to 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.839 get out of bed. Yeah, because it hurt. But there 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:13.840 was another reason too. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.080 A big part of it was also just the motivation 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:22.160 to tackle anything that needs tackling in life, you know, 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:28.200 career aspirations and goals. Everything was just not worth the trouble. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.680 I spent a lot of that time just laying on 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.719 the couch watching TV, all the seasons of Narcos, And 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.160 there was a long period where I had no relationship, 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.000 really had no one in my life for probably six 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:44.880 or seven years. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.480 At some point in this stretch, Aaron tells me that 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.079 he tried to stosterone for the first time. He'd seen 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.959 a family member on it go from quote dadbod to ripped, 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.960 and that family member taking the cystosterone. He told Aaron 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.040 it had helped with his mood and with his motivation 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.760 in the weight room. What if this was the answer 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.640 that he'd been looking for the reason he'd been feeling 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.000 so awful, so he found a doctor. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.600 He was kind of a sketchy doctor. To be honest 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.160 with you, I knew I could easily get it from 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.200 this type of doctor, and I was expecting it to 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:17.959 be like that movie Limitless. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.160 That movie Limitless, it comes up a lot on this show, 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:23.640 like so many people we spoke to brought it up. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.800 I've never seen it, but according to the Internet, it's 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.200 about a man played by Bradley Cooper, who is quote 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.280 facing unemployment and his girlfriend's rejection. He has no future, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:36.640 but that all changes when a friend gives him a 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:41.240 drug that produces enhanced mental acuity instantly. If nothing else, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.520 it's on the nose. But anyways, back to Aaron and 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.200 his first time on testosterone. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.360 Everyone tries to make it seem like it's just like 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.000 a night and day difference, and the fact is it's very, 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.120 very subtle. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.199 A year later, he'd lost about seventy pounds, which doesn't 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.880 sound so subtle. At around that same time, on vacation 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.600 in Colombia, Aaron met somebody. They hit it off, got married. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:06.880 His wife moved to the US to be with him. 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.520 They wanted to start a family and because there's some 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.040 evidence that testosterone can impact male fertility. Aaron went off 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.439 of it soon after the weight came back. He was 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.920 up to three hundred pounds. Aaron says when that weight 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.400 did come back, so did his depression and his backbane. 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.040 But the most relentless feeling what he spent the most 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.080 time ruminating on? What did other people think when they 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.480 saw him and overweight erin with his hot, thin wife, 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:38.680 her being, you know, from Columbia, having come here on 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:43.319 a fiancee visa. People usually assume like very specific things 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.760 about a marriage like that. What he means is people 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.400 assume she married him for the visa for American citizenship, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.640 because why else would she be with someone who looks 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:55.120 like him. 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.000 So it was upsetting to me to think that like this, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:05.920 you know, this couple with the husband being a super 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:10.800 overweight guy. I always wondered if people would wonder if 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:13.160 we had that type of a. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.520 Marriage, which just to say worrying that other people think 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.960 that sounds hard enough. But Aaron also says the way 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.800 he looked it made him question his wife's taste too. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.800 You know, why would someone want to be with someone 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.320 that's so overweight and appears like that. 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.960 My co producer on this show, Lena, She's also on 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:33.360 this call. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.840 I'm not a guy, and certainly I don't care about 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.839 peptid er steroids. But I'm very comfortable admitting that as 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.600 a woman, I've spent big spass of my life imagining 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.320 what I look like to the people looking at me. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.040 What can they see in the sun that I can't 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.160 see in a mirror? Is my sci fi showing? Was 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.040 I bailed on for a second date because of my 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.880 personality or because of how big my ass is? And 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.679 which of those answers is supposed to be the better one? 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.320 So I ask Aaron if the roles were reversed, if 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.680 his wife gained a bunch of weight, would that have 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.640 any impact on how much he wants to be with her. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.880 I've always cared a lot about how we appear physically 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.200 as a couple. It might be shallow in some ways, 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.680 but it is something that's important to me to have 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.680 a certain image as a couple. So that you know 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.000 the truth is, maybe it would be uncomfortable if the 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.680 shoe was on the other foot, And yeah, I probably 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:33.160 would struggle. 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.680 With that a little bit. To be completely. 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:39.920 Honest, not the answer I expected. I think we spend 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.640 our whole lives gathering all of these insecurities, these suspicions 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.320 about what other people think of us, and what we 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.120 hear back so often is that it's all in our heads. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:51.480 No one thinks about us as much as we think 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:57.800 about ourselves. Hearing Aaron say otherwise it sucks. At the 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.400 same time, I find it so relieving to hear someone 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.920 just say the damn saying okay, back to the boys. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.160 Aaron and I have been conditioned to filter our bodies 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.200 through the lens of sports. In my case, because of wrestling, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.160 I was a heavyweight, one of the big guys on 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.800 a team made up of absurdly lean men constantly crash 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:22.120 dieting like four percent body fat. Even at my smallest, 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.840 I was the fat guy in the group. It's changed 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.920 how I dress, how I move, what I think about myself. 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.040 People call me Big Sam, they always have. I hate it, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.640 and so much of that is rooted in my athletic ambitions. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.920 Even after I was done with wrestling, I spent the 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.240 rest of my twenties obsessing over staying as close to 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.520 my fighting weight as possible. I'd weigh myself three times 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.120 a day, restrict my eating for days or weeks at 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.920 a time. Sometimes I even cut out water. If I 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.720 hadn't grown up in such machismost circles, it would have 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.400 been called an eating disorder. Honestly, it was an eating disorder. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:00.200 And what was it all for? Four? 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:00.560 Really? 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.840 A big part of all this was like how my 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:09.560 father saw me as my coach and as my idol 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:10.480 in a lot of ways. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.080 Aaron tells me about a recent trip he took to 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.680 see his dad after losing all that weight now that 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:16.720 he's small again. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.080 And my dad at one point when we were alone, 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.400 he kind of like half pulled me into his lap 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.560 like I was still a you know, a thirteen year 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.200 old kid, twelve year old kid, and was telling me 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.960 how proud he was of me. And I hadn't given 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.120 him any reason in you know, twenty plus years to 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:35.760 be proud of me. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.960 When I was a kid, my dad never missed a 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.120 wrestling match, never, and sometimes before it was my turn 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.200 to compete, he'd sit with me and massage my traps 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.360 and my biceps and my back, and he'd tell me 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.160 how powerful I was, how proud of me he was. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.800 He'd call me his moose his genetic freak. It made 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.200 me feel so good. And now that my life isn't 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.160 centered on being an athlete, I don't have that anymore, 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.879 but I want it and I miss it. When I 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.560 step back and really think about this stuff, the obsession 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.040 with what's in the mirror, the stacks of drugs, I 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.000 guess it's not so confusing at all. We're all just 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.640 licking old wounds, and now, because of companies like Enhanced, 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:32.920 we have the option to do so with drugs. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:37.760 I'm a nineteen year old who can afford his own 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.320 gear in his own fucking groceries, bread so online. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.639 AJ's open about his steroid us. In videos, you can 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.400 see him flexing for the camera, his age and height 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.439 posted on the screen, plus his current stack of steroids. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.760 Usually there's rap or heavy metal music on in the background. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.520 Man just hop on. His eyes are bulging and red. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.680 In most of his clips, it's nighttime, only enough light 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.080 to show his frame. Everything behind him is pitch black. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.399 We got on the phone back in February. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.040 I've been on testosterals for like twenty weeks. 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.320 Oh so it's still that's doing math that's like five months. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.399 Yeah, okay, how are you? 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:16.399 How are you feeling. 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.760 I feel like I feel like an animal. You know, 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.640 I just feel, you know, you know, like very powerful. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.520 I feel like there's no goal that I can't achieve. 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.199 You know, I feel like I can do anything in 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.200 the world. It really puts you like in a motivated state. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:30.960 Twenty four seven. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.160 Aj says he grew up playing football and he originally 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.960 got into weightlifting at fifteen because of how much he 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:38.080 admired superheroes. 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.199 You know, I always would to love like him. You know, 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.600 that feeling of like, you know, like dominate some power. 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:43.879 You know, that's z he has. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.639 He says he started using testosterone at eighteen because people 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:48.560 online told him to. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.000 I had a bunch of other guys like telling me 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.920 like how fucking like how much how it exploded. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.440 And you know, like shit shit like that. 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.199 But I already knew for myself personally, I knew I 0:18:58.240 --> 0:18:59.800 had the genetics to like, actually look good. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.560 I knew I had the genetics to actually look good 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.960 if I hop on. For the record, even in the 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.280 bodybuilding community, eighteen is considered very young for performance enhancing drugs. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.520 The standard recommendation is basically, get as big and strong 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.399 as you possibly can first, then use drugs to go 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:19.120 that extra mile? 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.760 What made you decide to do it so so early? 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.200 Because I feel like there's no sense of waiting because 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.959 like like a lot of chances don't come like often, 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.679 like like you know, like finding another gear source or 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:31.160 you know. 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:32.000 Things in that nature. 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.520 When you say finding another gear source, what do you mean, you. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.920 Know, like finding finding you know, like a legit, a 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.560 legit you know, someone that can actually get you like 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:41.440 legit gear. 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.160 You know, how do you get it? Get it from 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:46.639 face to face with were plugged? 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.719 So basically he started doing steroids because he had access 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:55.000 to steroids. AJ dreams of being a bodybuilder, also an influencer. 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.840 His biggest heroes include bodybuilders Tom Platts and Lee Priest, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.119 and someone named Dallas McCarver, a YouTube bodybuilder born in 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.680 nineteen ninety one. McCarver actually died of a heart attack 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.680 in twenty seventeen at twenty six. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.320 Damn, but he's he's a legend. 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:19.399 Though mccarver's autopsy report lists a massively enlarged heart, kidney damage, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.400 and an engorged liver as contributors to his death, all 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.879 symptoms associated with long term steroid abuse. When we speak 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.119 AJ's nineteen years old and living at home with his parents. 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.000 I ask him, do they know about the drugs he's taking? 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.359 Like my mom, he kind of accepted it, but you know, 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:39.280 my dad hates it. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:40.479 Why does he hate it? 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:40.600 Can? 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.560 I ask? Uh? Because of the health aspects. 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.560 He believes that it's just so damaging to the health 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:48.639 and things of that nature. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.359 And do you have any thoughts about that, like, you know, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.760 because it's like there's a you know, there's. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.639 Maybe like a thirty percent chance of like actually running 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.399 in the problems. But I'd rather be like, like, I 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:02.240 really don't care. I'd rather just be big as fuck. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.200 I rather die big as fuck, Like I'll do anything 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.800 just to be like fucking huge. So it doesn't really 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:08.960 either way. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:10.840