Bodybuilding addiction: When you become stronger and weaker at the same time.
People love to make anorexia jokes whenever a famous actress gets too thin( and fat jokes if she goes six pounds the other direction ), but you'd never look at, say, The Rock and wonder if he has body image issues. How could he? He looks awesome!
But bodybuilding addiction is entirely a thing; these are the cases where an preoccupation with physique leads to lost employment creation and ruined relationships, rather than a series of roles in increasingly implausible action movies. We talked to "Brian, " a former bodybuilding addict from Florida, who tells ...
5 It Starts With Low Self-Esteem And A Need To Belong
It plays out like a parody of those narcotic PSAs from the 1960 s. Brian had low self-esteem and, during his senior year of high school, his brother devoted him a free sample of the very best stuff. Merely here it came in the form of one of those "free workout" fliers for a gym. Brian became the first person in history to actually use one of those things. "During my first day, " he tells, "it was like a light bulb went off in my head . ... One of the trainers told me I could have killer biceps and a six-pack by the end of the year."
"You'll need a face mask to survive all the panties being hurled at you."
He was hooked. Laugh if you want, but you can become addicted to anything. Exercising releases endorphins, and teenage insecurity did the remainder -- addiction is always about escape. "When I wasn't in the gym, I didn't feel like moving. But I find myself in the mirror and would instantly feel better. All the bodybuilders in the gym congratulated me and started recommending feeing whey and muscle mass supplement. I worked on various regions of my body and waited to see who would notice first. That was a huge motivation for me, because it was validating that I wasn't a stick dude anymore."
Ah, validation -- the greatest high of all. Psychologists say that's the real driver behind bodybuilding addiction -- getting hooked on the constant compliments. Brian's life became like Trainspotting , if Ewan McGregor had traded in his needle for having buff gym rats say "Nice lats, bro" as they passed by on their route to the free weights. It's around here when you'll start to realize this tale also sounds like somebody being sucked into a cult -- the sense of belonging, the need to separate yourself from all of those weak and impure foreigners, the discovery of a larger intent in life, the continual policing of behavior within the group ...
"Brother Chad has not removed his sleeves! SHAME! "
"I couldn't cease . ... Looking toned was now the new being scrawny. I find everyone in the gym ... their huge muscles and workouts that took hours. I was miles behind. Every day I thought about this[ my] depression would come back. So I would add extra day or more lifts."
4 Like Any Addiction, It Can Fuck Up Your Life
"It was in my head that I had to do more, that I could do more. I convinced myself that building up my muscles was going to make everything better, " he says.
Matthias Drobeck/ iStock
"One more set, and then you'll eventually have your father's approval."
It seems like many addicts have similar stories, but there appears to be a sharp divide when it comes to how obvious your addiction is from the outside. The stumbling drunk, the strung-out crackhead, the gambler who has sold his children to the Russian mob ... they've usually got an intervention be forthcoming, even if it's simply in the form of being yelled at by a judge. But when your addiction is slowly turning you into a sculpted Greek god, pity is in short supply. Not even Brian knew he had a problem, right up until he lost his chore over it.
"I was actually fired when I was at the gym powerlifting . ... I was an hour late for run and my only excuse was that I was exerting. My boss knew I was here a lot( my limb muscles were actually stretching out some of the company polo shirts ), but she said it was the last straw and I was "lets get going". I told my spotter and he shrugged and told me my job was keeping me back. The crazy thing was that, at the time, I believed him."
Antonio_Diaz/ iStock
"So you're going to start paying my rent and grocery bills, right? "
"Nah, food and shelter are just holding you back, too."
Obviously, getting fired because you expend too much day working out is better than getting fired because you passed out in a puddle of your own vomit for 48 hours after a heroin binge. But Brian was still just as fired, and this is surprisingly common among bodybuilding addicts -- home and run fall by the wayside as "users" spiral out of control. Jobs can become all but impossible to discover because of the insisting that they not interfere with the insane educate schedule.
And that's not all. "Many places didn't want to hire a guy with huge arms, " tells Brian. "One job I applied for was as an orderly at a children's wing in a hospital, and I was told that I would scare them. I'm a really gentle guy, but little kids can be really intimidated. I aimed up being a bouncer for a club."
Where intimidating children is actively promoted .
So, Brian rearranged his life to accommodate his nonstop bodybuilding, rolling through a succession of bouncing gigs to pay his whey bills. Well, some of his whey bills. "My mothers ... they always gave me fund when I was in between jobs, to buy food. I spent most of it on bodybuilding supplements." The only reason Brian wound up getting help is because he'd listed his mothers as his emergency contacts for one bouncing chore. "When I didn't show up for run because my educate was longer than usual, my manager called them to make sure I was OK, and if I was, they told me, I would be fired the next time I was late."
"I'm gonna take one of my cutting personal days."
Finally, the person or persons around Brian acknowledged he had a problem -- five years after it started. His mothers demanded he consider a psychologist, and that's where he found out he had muscle dysmorphia, the medical term for when someone gains muscle to the extreme since they are consider themselves as small and weak. Psychology professionals call it a kind of reverse anorexia, and sufferers even tend to have suicidal propensities. It doesn't matter who you are -- once you've programmed yourself to hate what you see in the mirror, that can become an inescapable prison.
"I didn't think this was a problem, " Brian remembers. "I was healthy ... but where reference is asked me why I was doing this, besides to simply get muscular, I had nothing."
3 Steroids Are Ubiquitous
You might think it's weird that we haven't mentioned steroids by this phase, so we suppose we should address the elephant in the room. Steroids have been a source of unhappines for Brian since Day 1. Specifically, the fact that he never did them. He couldn't, because his bouncer undertakings were big on narcotic testing.
Bogdanhoda/ iStock Though in a pinch, you could just steal some Coors Light from the cooler and no one would know the difference .
"It killed me, because I wanted to develop larger muscles like[ the users] did. Everyone else employed them. Most of them cycled their utilization( taking time off to balance hormones) but you would occasionally see it." He told us about one bodybuilder, who he nicknamed "Chet, " who "always played thrash metal while he injected himself, made the wall a few days with his fist and screamed, 'Let's do it! '" Because some people make it their life's enterprises to represent the most ridiculous stereotypes for whatever they happen to be doing.
Brian tells ruefully that his steroid "sobriety" is "why it took me so long to build my muscles up and why mine never got as big as theirs."( There's that muscle dysmorphia talking again .) He adds, "Everyone who could, employed. It was as normal as seeing someone wipe sweat from their face."
"Here's your complimentary workout towel and hypodermic needle! "
According to surveys, 1 out of every 5 bodybuilders use steroids, but Brian's gym( his second gym; we'll get to that in a moment) was filled with "serious" bodybuilders, so the 'roid ratio was considerably higher. The practice isn't exactly frowned upon; keep in mind it wasn't until the late 2000 s that professional bodybuilding started testing for steroids because -- duh -- 'roided-out bodybuilders make for a route most impressive rivalry. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to steroid utilize back in the working day. They were, and still are, part of the culture.
2 "Swole Culture" Made Everything Worse
If you've spend a lot of day at a larger gym, you've likely spotted these guys. "[ They] tend to dominate a gym, " tells Brian. "They're there all the time, they can scare away people because of their posture, they grunt a lot, they're loud, and any music they listen to will always hemorrhage out of their headphones. Instead of saying encouragingly, 'You can do it! ' it's more like, 'PUMP, PUMP, PUMP! DO IT! '"
"PUMP IT UP! WHILE YOUR FEET ARE STOMPIN' AND THE JAM IS PUMPING! "
"Swole" isn't simply a dumb term for having swollen muscles. It's a whole subculture, and it's not entirely a negative one. Brian underlines how supportive his fellow gym rats were -- as long as he kept working out. Ironically, it's exactly the kind of support group recovering addicts need, simply in the other direction. "If I stopped pumping a weight person would say, 'Fight it bro. Maintain pumping that iron! ' We all also traded workouts that worked for us." But, Brian adds, "A lot of it was negative."
You might be able to guess one of those negatives by how infuriating it is to type or read the word "swole." "I look back now and I can see how crazy and douchey it made me look. 'Bro' does get hurled around a lot, and I'll still use it in everyday dialogue. Among bodybuilders? Totally normal. But everybody else get creeped out. 'Bro' has a negative connotation, and using that term alone changes how people see you. I would be in dialogues at a bank with a teller and would be having a nice, pleasant back and forth. But as soon as I said that, they changed. The smile went away and they got me out of there as soon as possible."
"Sorry, sir, I'm allergic to douche."
How bad did it get? Well, Brian's first gym actually tried to offload him, and the other obsessive exercisers, to another gym. One guy get kicked out altogether. "He got into a huge debate about wiping down the bench press and asked them why they didn't deadlift. He only left when they threatened to call the police. I thought he was being a huge asshole, but when I got into the second gym, asking person that seemed normal."
If you're confused, you're just out of the loop on swole lingo -- asking person why they don't deadlift is interpreted as an insult, a version of the "Do you even lift, bro? " meme :P TAGEND
"I now know he was saying that and leaving sweat on the bench to be noticed, since we all want validation. 'Do you even lift bro' is not an insult to people who don't go to the gym -- they just want attention on their own body."
But that simply brings us to the saddest part of all ...
1 Having Huge Muscles Isn't Even An Advantage
Remember when Brian's gorilla-arms made it difficult for him to get run that involved children, presumably because they feared he'd treat them as living dumbbells? Well, being ridiculously huge impacts your life in other routes. "When my biceps were at 14 inches and my veins looked like the latter are popping out, everyone was abruptly concerned. I could see why. I expected ladies to start asking me if they could feel my muscles, but instead they went out of their route to avoid me. Even at bars, when I tried to engage one in dialogue, they would take one look at my arms and say, 'Compensating for something? ' or something similar."
"Yes ... yes, actually ... "
OK, so Brian apparently went to a bar for rude people with death wish. But he encountered some more banal problems too. "Finding clothes that fit. Pants were fine because I mainly focused on my upper body, but shirts were a real problem. Most of my older shirts I liked had to become tank tops because of the sleeves being too small. Half of my wardrobe at the time was actually tank tops. The real nightmare was a suit jacket. My best friend had a bridal in Tampa, and I was fitted for a tuxedo as best man. Besides my arms, I was the equivalent to that given to a medium. But "the mens" who measured my sleeves said, 'We might not be able to tailor a coat for you.' Fortunately, they had some actually huge jackets and they sewed on the sleeves."
His biggest problem, however, is something he shares with millions of recovering alcoholics and addicts: Once you give up your addiction, you often give up your social group, too. In Brian's case, it meant all his "swole" gym buddies, who by this phase were also some of his only buddies. "After I told them I was stopping because I had a problem, they told me I actually was weak. When I canceled, the bodybuilder who ran the gym said to me, 'You're turning your back on your physique, bro. You'll lose all your muscle.' I told him again it was for my mental health, since I would feel bad about my body no matter what, but he and a few other persons who passed me by simply called me a quitter, as if this was personal." Of course, it is personal, in a way -- this is still all about validation, and tearing down quitters reinforces their group as the dedicated elite.
"Come on, let's go do shoulder shrugs until we can shrug off all our feelings."
This is not to say that all bodybuilders are junkies, of course. Millions of people can seek it as a pastime without getting sucked into a pit of obsession that ruins every other aspect of "peoples lives". Perhaps the difference for someone like Brian is just a matter of getting started for all the incorrect reasons -- insecurity is a beast that only get hungrier as you feed it.
As for Brian, well, his muscles are back down to a somewhat normal size these days, and he no longer resemble a giant bunch of grapes. The downside is he's not getting that continuous river of compliments from his bros, but the upside is he'll never have to use the word "swole" ever again.
Evan V. Symon is a writer interviewer and interview finder for the Personal Experience team here at Cracked. Have a chore/ experience that you would like to contribute to? Hit us up at tips @cracked. com today ! Which Sci-Fi Trope Would You Bring To The Real world, And Why ? Every summer, we're treated to the same buffet of three or four science fiction movies with the same basic vanities. There's man vs. aliens, human vs. robots, human vs. army of clones, and human vs. complicated day travelling rules. With virtual reality and self-driving autoes fast approaching, it's time to consider what type of sci-fi movie we want to be living in for the rest of our lives. Co-hosts Jack O'Brien and Adam Tod Brown are joined by Cracked's Tom Reimann and Josh Sargent and comedians David Huntsberger, Adam Newman, and Caitlin Gill to figure out which sci-fi trope would be the best to make a reality. Get your tickets to this live podcast here ! For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Terrifying Things I Learned As A Drug-Addicted Nurse and 5 Unexpected Things I Learned From Being A Heroin Addict . Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out If Gyms Were Honest, and other videos you won't consider on the site !Also, follow us on Facebook, and let's be swolmates .
Read more: www.cracked.com
No comments:
Post a Comment