Bennyh Odin Larsen injected anabolic steroids for more than 30 years. Today, he depends on prescription testosterone to function. His brain can no longer tell his body to produce the hormone naturally. Danish doctors say steroid addiction is real, and more than half of users relapse within a year of trying to quit.
Bennyh Odin Larsen describes the first cycle like putting on a superhero costume. He was not yet 20 years old when he started. Within weeks, his shoulders broadened, his muscles hardened, and the weight on the bar climbed faster than he thought possible. He was hooked.
For the next three decades, he chased that feeling. More strength. More brutality. More explosiveness. The hunger never stopped. He would plan his next cycle while still on the current one, already thinking about which compounds to stack, which doses to push higher.
Then he tried to stop. And the floor dropped out.
The Crash After the High
When Bennyh Odin Larsen quit steroids, he did not just lose muscle mass and strength. He lost his ability to feel joy. The world went gray. He describes falling into what he calls the black coal cellar, a pit of exhaustion and sadness he could not climb out of on his own.
According to Jon J. Rasmussen, a researcher at Rigshospitalet who studies anabolic steroids, this is not unusual. More than 50 percent of steroid users return to the drugs within six to twelve months of quitting, he reports, because they cannot tolerate the psychological and physical collapse that follows. The body has been flooded with artificial testosterone for so long that it forgets how to make its own.
Josefine Windfeld-Mathiasen, a physician and steroid researcher, explains the mechanics. Deep inside the brain sits the pituitary gland, a control center that monitors hormone levels and adjusts production accordingly. When someone injects large doses of synthetic testosterone, the pituitary gets confused. It reads the flood of hormones as a signal to shut down natural production. Stop the injections abruptly, and the body is left with almost nothing. Extreme fatigue, depression, and a complete loss of motivation follow.
Denmark is no stranger to rising health optimization trends, but steroid use remains a shadow practice with consequences that outlast the pursuit of muscle.
A Prescription for Life
Today, Bennyh Odin Larsen is a patient at Herlev Hospital. He takes medication for thickened blood and a weakened heart. He also receives testosterone on prescription, not to build muscle, but to replace what his body can no longer produce. Without it, he says, he would sink back into that cellar.
His doctor, Ebbe Eldrup, an attending physician at Herlev, sees this pattern often. Some patients struggle to accept the lower, medically appropriate doses he prescribes. They remember the feeling of being on higher doses and want it back. Eldrup does not mince words. In his view, the addiction is comparable to narcotics. It is habit forming in ways medical science does not yet fully understand, and breaking free is exceptionally difficult.
The treatment raises questions. Should the Danish public health system pay to treat the long term damage caused by voluntary steroid use? Bennyh Odin Larsen has thought about this. He points out that society helps people addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. He pays for his testosterone prescription out of pocket, but the rest of his care is covered. Denmark has a safety net, he says, and he is grateful it caught him when he fell.
This is not so different from the pattern seen with weight loss drugs and the medical procedures that follow. Both involve long term consequences of attempts to reshape the body.
The Hidden Epidemic
Steroid use is often framed as a fitness issue or a matter of vanity. The physical side effects get attention: acne, hair loss, cardiovascular strain. But the psychological damage runs deeper and lasts longer. The mental health cost of quitting is severe enough that most users cannot sustain it without relapse.
Denmark, like much of Europe, does not track steroid abuse with the same rigor applied to other substances. There is no national registry of users seeking treatment for hormone shutdown or cardiac complications. Researchers like Rasmussen and Windfeld-Mathiasen work with limited data, often gathered from hospital admissions and voluntary surveys. The true scale of the problem remains obscured.
What is clear is that steroid dependency does not resolve when the vials run out. The damage to the endocrine system can be permanent. Some users will need testosterone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives, not because they want to stay muscular, but because their bodies cannot function without it. The line between treatment and continued use becomes blurry.
This intersects with broader concerns about a looming obesity crisis, as Denmark grapples with multiple fronts of body image pressure and metabolic dysfunction.
A Warning That May Not Be Heard
Bennyh Odin Larsen has been off illicit steroids for a year. He sticks to his prescription and nothing more, though the temptation lingers in the back of his mind. He has chosen to speak publicly about his experience in the hope that younger men will think twice before starting. He calls it a bad path to walk down.
But warnings rarely work in isolation. The culture that pushes young men toward steroid use remains strong. Gym influencers, online forums, and underground suppliers continue to operate openly. The pursuit of size and strength is celebrated, and the long term costs are dismissed as problems for later, if they are mentioned at all.
Ebbe Eldrup sees the results in his clinic. He knows the cycle will repeat. More young men will start. Some will quit. Many will not. And a portion of those who do will end up in his office, needing medical intervention to restore what their bodies can no longer do on their own.
Sources and References
TV 2: Han tog steroider i årevis – nu betaler han prisen
