Memoirs of a Steroid Kingpin, Prologue

“I can do this,” I said to myself as I was staring at my computer screen. I was researching iSteroids, an online forum of steroid suppliers where people discuss anabolic steroids, post analysis on suppliers, and review products. 

 I had been dealing steroids, among other things, locally for the previous eight years.  Everyone in a fifty-mile radius, and surrounding cities, knew that if they wanted juice, I was the man to see.  I had proven adept at navigating social structures and had become a dominant supplier in my area.  I was a social chameleon who could blend in with any crowd and gain anyone’s acquaintanceship.  I was able to befriend anyone who had what I wanted, figure out their network and supply chains, orchestrate better deals, and bring it to more people. When I met a good dealer, it was only a short period of time before I was supplying them. I would show them how to make more money by supplying a preferred product, at a cheaper price, to a larger client base.  I supplanted my competition with ingenuity, superior products, and a sophisticated strategy with impeccable social skills.  

“I can compete with these prices.”

“I can do this,” I said to myself as I was staring at my computer screen.

Over the years I had found an amazing connection from China. After years of ordering gradually larger and larger amounts of product, I would begin to obtain anabolic steroids, HGH, IGF, clenbuterol, t3, Cialis, and Viagra for absurdly low and unheard-of prices. As it turned out, from this Chinese connection, I would soon be competing with anyone in the United States, including the biggest dealers in the country. It was time to capitalize on my assets. All I had to do was make it happen.

It was mid 2010; I had just gotten back from a six-month stint at an inpatient rehabilitation clinic. Part of this rehab’s educational methodology included making the patients responsible for the day-to-day operation of the community. This methodology included creating a bureaucracy, where residents who had proven themselves responsible, are put in charge of ensuring the smooth operation of the community. Here, I rose to the top of the bureaucracy, and as “House Coordinator”, I was in charge of every other resident. It was my job to make sure structure was maintained and to ensure the house functioned as a coordinated group. It taught me responsibility, accountability, and positive reinforcement for achievements.  I took a lot of skills from that program, including: leadership, management, delegation, and the knowledge that if I put my head down and worked hard, I could achieve what I wanted.  However, success won’t just come to you.  You have to make it happen.

I had just gotten off parole stemming from a conviction for selling anabolic steroids three years prior, back in 2007. I sold steroids, coke, and whatever else I could to make money. Even though I was the top steroid supplier in the area, it was a small city, so I didn’t have a lot of clients, and I didn’t make a lot of money.

I had just gotten off parole stemming from a conviction for selling anabolic steroids three years prior.

A vocation was not easy to come by for an ex-felon, so I volunteered at a nearby hospital to get a foot in the door, and eventually landed a job there.  I have a degree in biochemistry, but there just aren’t any positions available in such a broad field of science, especially for a guy with two felonies on his record.  My job title was Emergency Room Tech, where I aided the doctors and nurses in the Emergency Room. I was working assiduously, and I felt good about myself, but, working forty hours at nine dollars an hour averaged about two hundred and seventy-five dollars a week after taxes. I was living at my grandmother’s house rent free while she was in a home recovering from a stroke. It was fortuitous that I was living there, because after my other bills were paid, I wouldn’t have been able to afford rent.  I was working hard, and started getting my head on straight.  Although I was admittedly an alcoholic and a drug addict, for the time being, I had managed to significantly limit my drug and alcohol intake. I began feeling productive, motivated, and ambitious. 

A customer informed me about this online forum, named iSteroids, where you could read reviews of different steroid brands and their suppliers, and from there, you could go to these reviewed suppliers and make purchases. It is sort of like a mall for anabolic steroids. Naturally, I wanted to be one of the stores in this mall. Because of my great Chinese connection, I could undercut any of these suppliers and still maintain a formidable profit margin.

I could undercut any of these suppliers with my great Chinese connection.

Some weeks prior to this, I reunited with Gene, a friend I hadn’t seen in the three years since I had been busted back in 2007 for a minor possession and distribution of anabolic steroids conviction. We had known each other for a long time, since the early 2000’s. He used to sell me steroids and whatever else I wanted back in the day. He was a more impetuous and rash version of myself. Prior to my reign over the local steroid market, in the Binghamton New York area, he was the man to go to for whatever drug anyone wanted. He had the type of skills required to supplant social regimes and become the premier supplier for whatever area he wanted to overtake. He had a hard time making money, because he used too much of his own products. He moved to Brooklyn back in the mid 2000’s, and he only came back into town occasionally to drop off a few ounces of coke. When I found my Chinese source, nobody could touch my prices, so he came full circle and started buying steroids from me to sell in Brooklyn. Right before I got busted in 2007, Gene had somehow found my Chinese connection, but because he didn’t trust that the source knew him well enough yet, he still wanted to go through me for steroids. At this time, in 2007, He still wasn’t doing too well with money because he could barely muster up four hundred dollars every few weeks to put in an order with me. I remember being devastated, because in this business, I knew it was only a matter of time before Gene started ordering directly from my Chinese connection, and one of my more lucrative sources of revenue at the time would soon disappear. Once I realized I was going to do a short bid in state prison from the 2007 conviction, I introduced my steroid supplier to Gene, and handed him the reigns, stipulating to Gene that I wanted a partnership when I got out.

About three years later, in the middle of 2010, right about the time one of my clients had told me of this online mall for steroids, I get an unexpected phone call. It is Gene. He is forty-five minutes out and wanted to stop in to say hello. No shit. I had mixed feelings. I worked a lot and wasn’t drinking or using any drugs, and that was all this guy pretty much did. I was also excited. It would be good to see him again. What I saw next was nothing short of shocking.

What I saw next was nothing short of shocking.

Gene pulled up in a massively extravagant, brand new, fully loaded Hummer complete with aftermarket enhancements. He got out with a big smile on his face and gave me a hug. He was a big boy who used a lot of steroids, and it showed. He grabbed a bag out of the back and came in to my house brimming with enthusiasm and excitement. He pulled out a big bag of coke and crystal meth, offered some to me, did a few lines after I declined, and started talking. He opened his bag, and it was full of stacks of hundred-dollar bills, my guess was about thirty thousand dollars. I had never seen this amount of money in cash before. He pulled out some bottles of testosterone and started tossing them to me to keep for my personal use. He started telling me about how he turned that steroid source into a goldmine. He told me about his Hummer, and his new Nissan GTR. He told me that he made nine hundred thousand dollars last year. He told me he used to be a debt collector for some organized crime bosses. He did some shady things, but he was good at his job, and it gave him well respected name to start moving massive amounts of steroids, coke, Molly, and whatever else anyone wanted. The indication was that he made most of his money off the steroids, and he praised me for helping him with the source. This mother fucker turned my source into this? I was in awe. I suddenly had a huge amount of respect for Gene knowing that he could turn an opportunity into such a massive success. He didn’t tell me exactly how he did it, but his garrulous nature created by the drugs made him reveal a lot of details. Once he started buying a certain amount of steroids from my Chinese supplier, he started naming his own prices, halving his product cost from what I was paying. He gave me the blueprint to negotiate even better prices from the already insanely low prices I was currently paying. I was impressed. I was impressed and jealous. But, most of all, I was motivated.

Gene told me that he made nine hundred thousand dollars last year!

I sat there looking at this steroid forum website. I knew Gene must have done something ambitious and bold. It made me want to utilize my assets, take a chance, and emulate his success. It was time for me to make it happen.

I was going to focus on becoming a source on, iSteroids, the steroid forum website, and I was going to grind at it until it happened. There were a lot of steps, and it was going to be was an arduous process. It was the first time I really understood the difference between those who were successful and those who were complacent. There was a lot of work that needed to be completed to reach my goal, but I was going to put my head down, take it step by step, and get it done. This drive to accomplish my goals is where I coined my mantra; “Make it happen”.

Looking at this realistically, my hope with becoming a source on iSteroids was to bring in two-hundred, maybe three-hundred extra dollars a week. That was probably over ambitious, but two or three hundred extra dollars a week would be a stellar addition. It would make me comfortable.

Looking back, I still snicker at this notion, for I really believed even a few hundred extra dollars a week was overzealous, and unlikely. How could I have known that these next steps I was about to take would lead to the creation of my empire, my legacy, and would generate more money, power, and prestige than I had ever dreamed possible.

Next >>: Interlude 01 (In Retrospect)

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Memoirs of a Steroid Kingpin (Table of Contents)

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Ryan’s Root’s real-life autobiographical story is a must-read account of his rise and fall as one of the largest anabolic steroid dealers on the Internet.

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