“Kicking steroids was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life”

By Tina Plakinger, Former Female Bodybuilder, Muscle & Fitness, magazine article. Kicking steroids was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. You go through terrible withdrawal. It takes six months to a year to completely get them out of your system. But once you're clean, it's worth it… (Competition drug testing) actually saved my life because steroids were destroying me. Do you want to know what happened to me the night I kicked steroids? Well, I had taken $2,000 of my hard-earned savings money I had put in the bank to buy a house some day, and I ordered some hGH (human growth hormone). I'm in the bathroom all by myself. I live alone. No one knows I'm there. I'm ready to plunge a two-inch needle into my gluteus muscle. I catch a view of myself in the mirror. I see zits breaking out on my arms and chest. My face is bloated. I say: “You know what? This is insanity! This is insanity! The unmanageability of my life right now… I've just taken two grand from my life savings and look at me - ready to inject myself with a human growth hormone derived from the pituitary glands of dead people who aren't even tested for AIDS.” I called the guy the next day and told him to send me my money back. That was the last time I took steroids and thank God, it will remain the last time