A year and a half ago I came up with an idea, Testosterone, The New Drug Addiction. I knew I was on to something.

As I was doing my research, I contacted the head of endocrinology with a major medical company. When he picked up the phone the first words out of his mouth were, “Lisa WE NEED YOU.”  Tears started streaming down my face. My response, “You mean I am not a crazy woman.” He said NO, this is a big problem and its only getting worse.   I am approaching my one year anniversary of testosteroneaddiction.com  and now more and more stories are coming out to support what I have been talking and writing about.

A recent Washington Post story about a woman who was on testosterone for two weeks says she felt like a man

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/30/what-i-learned-when-i-lived-like-a-man-for-a-couple-of-weeks/

and a recent story about the abuse of hormones reinforces what I have been writing about.

http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/columns/others/The-abuse-of-hormones/articleshow/47869889.cms

In April I was interviewed by a woman who said, “Lisa, so you’re calling testosterone an addiction.”   YES I AM!  I replied.

That’s a pretty bold statement, but I have the facts to back up it.  Testosterone is a 4 billion industry and growing.  Why all of sudden does everyone need more testosterone than what they produce in their bodies? We don’t.

We are facing an information gap between medical professionals and addiction professionals.  The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.”

Consider what is happening: Testosterone replacement therapy is being promoted as the “feel good, muscle building, sex boosting” designer drug of the millennium and is being prescribed to middle aged men and women across the country.

Your body makes testosterone, which is an anabolic, androgenic steroid hormone. Adding it to your body shuts down your own production. That is the danger!

But the advertisers urge people to visit the clinic for a diagnosis of “LOW T” and most patients are told their testosterone is considered to be on the low end; therefore, they are a candidate for testosterone replacement therapy.  The diagnosis doesn’t mean you need testosterone, it means you have a choice. The only people who need exogenous testosterone are men with hypogonadism, a medical term that defines a serious physical condition.

If you want to know the facts, read the study, “Prolonged Hypogonadism in Males Following Withdrawal from Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids: an Under recognized Problem” by Drs. Kanayama, Weiner, Baggish, and Pope, Mr. DeLuca, and Ms. Isaacs.

Now, here is the addiction aspect of my statement: “Testosterone replacement therapy is addictive.”

A peer reviewed study, Anabolic-androgenic steroid dependence: an emerging disorder conducted to determine the human and animal evidence that anabolic androgenic steroids can cause a dependence syndrome, or as I call it addiction. Here are their findings:

“Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Dependence: An Emerging Disorder” by

Gen Kanayama,¹ Kirk J. Brower,² Ruth I. Wood,³ James I. Hudson,¹ and Harrison G. Pope, Jr

They found evidence “showing that AAS may cause a distinct dependence syndrome, often associated with adverse psychiatric and medical effects. . .About 30% of AAS users appear to develop a dependence syndrome, characterized by chronic AAS use despite adverse effects on physical, psychosocial, or occupational functioning.”

The report notes that “AAS dependence shares many features with classical drug dependence.”

But the most alarming evidence was that “hamsters will self-administer AAS, even to the point of death” and the inherent danger in AAS therapy is that there is a “well-documented AAS withdrawal syndrome.”

The report concludes that: “AAS dependence is a valid diagnostic entity, and likely a growing public health problem.”

There is another aspect to testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) that these studies don’t talk about. TRT can and does produce an immediate gain, and that is hypersexual disorder, a side effect of pellet insertion. This is verified in the book, The Secret Female Hormone. The question I pose is, “Does taking testosterone lead to sex addiction?”

Can some people take testosterone and not become addicted, YES!  It really depends on how much they are taking, how it’s being administered.

I launched testosteroneaddiction.com to educate, inform and inspire people to live their lives TRT free.  I have had 100’s of people reach out to me and 1000’s of people come to my website with a common theme. Sex. The question must be asked: Does taking testosterone lead to sex addiction?  Let’s examine. Kathy Maupin in her book The Secret Female Hormone says one of the side effects of testosterone pellet therapy is 4 to 5 weeks of hypersexual disorder.  Patrick Carnes the world-renowned expert on sex addiction in his book Don’t CALL IT LOVE, says,

We can accept that people can be sick with alcoholism or can destroy themselves with gambling or food – but               not sex.  There are some who see the problem clearly but hesitate to call it an addiction.  They choose words                 like compulsive or hypersexual. Instead of calling it what it is Sex Addiction.

So are we creating sex addicts with testosterone replacement therapy?

One of the driving reasons people are being drawn into the “hormone clinics” is they want to rev up their sex lives. They are middle age, the kids are grown and a phrase I hear often is “It’s my time now.” Can testosterone increase your sex life the answer is yes.  One woman who reached out to me said, I had just gotten my testosterone pellets and I was on my way to work, I had to turn the car around and go home to masturbate. Another man said, he felt like John Belushi in Animal House.  He had the Devil on one side of his head and the Angel on the other side of his head.  Sex had consumed his mind so much so he almost compromised who he was and said he had to stop taking it.  There are 100’s more stories that I am aware of and I know 1000’s I am not aware of.

If you have been prone to addiction whether chemical or behavioral, I would caution you not to add testosterone to your middle age regime.  Remember, those hormone clinics you are going to are in the business to sell hormones, that is their business.  It’s a multi-billion dollar industry and only growing.

Is this the next drug addiction?

I do believe it is.

Will it lead to an increase in sex addiction and other crime?

I do believe it will.