IS ROID RAGE REAL?

Steroid Users Have Better Anger Control During Steroid Use than Before Use

“If you started as an asshole, you’re still an asshole” is essentially the conclusion of this new, groundbreaking study by famed lawyer Rick Collins. Collins and three other academics took 1955 individuals who were using gear and had them evaluate their levels of anger and aggression according to a 291-item web-based survey. The results were eye-opening, to say the least. According to their final numbers, the participants indicated that anger intensity increased from “mild-moderate” to “moderate” from before steroid use to during use. However, if you delve into the results further, you’ll see something interesting and even more thought-provoking. Anger intensity decreased back to “mild-moderate” after use. Anger control remained in the “poor control” category, although improved towards “poor-moderate” from before steroid use to during use and improved more to “poor-moderate control” after use. This is why the groundbreaking study has many implications, as it serves to help break the stereotypes associated with “’roid rage.”

Adult steroid users exhibit better anger control and shorter duration during steroid use than before steroid use. Upon stopping steroid use, participants reported improvements in all four measurements of anger to less than their pre-steroid levels.

As Per Rick Collins:

“Our study doesn’t add any fuel to the ‘steroids made me do it’ legal defense. Using voluntary drug consumption as an excuse for criminal behavior has rarely been successful at trial. Juries dislike that defense. So don’t expect to get a walk by blaming a violent crime on gear. My position articulated years ago in my book Legal Muscle is the one many steroid experts agree on: The presence and severity of steroid adverse effects, including psychiatric ones, are related to many factors including dose and any preexisting psychiatric problems. The most common behavioral problem associated with steroid use is the situation when a jerk simply becomes a bigger jerk.”

What Constitutes an AAS?

“It’s important to distinguish between cycling gear and medical testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).  Weekly doses in medical TRT are many times less than in typical steroid cycles, so the potential for negative psychiatric effects is much, much less. Many studies of medical TRT show benefit with limited drawbacks, and the therapy is continuing to gain popularity despite a certain degree of backlash by conservative doctors, media outlets, and class action lawyers. If you’re interested in the developing landscape of TRT, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook and check out my blog at steroidlaw.com.”

In our opinion, this study was a really great start, but there are opportunities for future research, such as the following:

• Conducting two separate studies; one to include participants who have no reported prior anger/aggression issues, and one to solely include participants who admit to prior anger/aggression issues.

• Because there’s no objective test for anger or aggression, it’s hard to read the results as wholly conclusive, because surveys are all subjective. We need an objective measure of anger to test pre-/intra-/post -aggression levels related to steroid use.

• There could have been a psycholgical preconceived notion that the participants had about the expectations of study, and therefore the results post-steroid use reflected the fact that they thought they knew what the researchers wanted.