Raging Bulls: Inside Britain's Problem With Steroids

An anabolic steroids epidemic is sweeping Britain as muscle zealots turn to drug use as a shortcut to the body they crave. Even if you’re not the sort to sample, statistically speaking, someone close to you already is.

- Ben Wilson

You’ve read about it in the papers, perhaps even seen it around the office, and most definitely noticed its imprint down at the gym. You may even have acquaintances who are practising, albeit quietly. We’re talking about steroid use. And according to the latest data, those who are taking them are among a growing herd. In fact, they’re perfectly normal.

Over the past five years, steroid use in Britain has exploded. Its mainstream coming-out moment occurred when Made In Chelsea’s Spencer Matthews was thrown off I’m A Celebrity… thanks to an apparently unmanageable addiction. In 2015, professional rugby was identified as the nation’s most doped sport by UK Anti-Doping’s latest sanction list, with 29 out of 47 banned sportsmen being rugby players. UEFA, meanwhile, has admitted that one in 12 top footballers, including those from the Premier League, have suspiciously high levels of testosterone in their bodies. But it isn’t just sportsmen and reality stars looking to ‘level the playing field’ at a time when more athletes than ever are shooting up. If anything, these highprofile transgressions are indicative of the new rule, not the exception. So much so that in 2016, steroid use has become disconcertingly commonplace for gym-going British men seeking instant results.

“There are nearly a million steroid users nationwide,” says Joe Kean, a substance misuse counsellor behind the National Steroid Survey, an initiative funded by Public Health Wales that interviewed over 700 steroid-takers from health centres, sports clubs and needle exchanges across the UK.