Former NFL player Tony Mandarich admits to using anabolic steroids in an interview with Inside the NFL on Showtime today; more noteworthy is the fact that he was addicted to alcohol and prescription painkillers early in his NFL career. Yet rumors of steroid use were the dominant explanation for his disastrous bust as a second round NFL draft pick of the Green Bay Packers.

Steroids allegedly destroyed his body such that he could no longer play football at the level he displayed in college with the Michigan State Spartans football program. You know a substance has reached the pinnacle of demonization when it is used to both dismiss spectacular performances (e.g. Usain Bolt) and account for disappointing performances (e.g. Tony Mandarich).

Tony Mandarich attributes his poor performance in the NFL to his addiction to alcohol and prescription painkillers such as Staydal (”Tony Mandarich Says He Was Addicted to Drugs During Career,” September 30).

“I used them (steroids),” he says on Showtime’s ‘Inside the NFL’ show where he conducted an interview promoting his upcoming book “My Dirty Little Secrets -– Steroids, Alcohol and God.”. “This is the first time I ever said it. … If I would have come out and said it, I think it would have affected a lot of other people that were doing the same things.”

In the interview Mandarich says that the reason he didn’t perform as well in the NFL was because he became addicted the pain killer Staydal. He said he was doing up to seven shots a day of the drug.

Anti-steroid crusaders conveniently overlook Mandarich’s addiction to alcohol and narcotics in their attempts to demonize Mandarich’s steroid use. They latch onto the admission that Tony Mandarich used steroids when he played college football with Michigan State and throughout his pro football career with the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts. Whether your performance is great or your performance sucks, steroids are to blame.