When science lets us fulfill our greatest desires, where do we stop? If Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's career home run record, should the achievement get an asterisk because he has been accused of using steroids? Did Lance Armstrong need performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France a remarkable seven times? And how much of Arnold Schwarzenegger's success is due to his steroid-fueled bodybuilding titles?
In the tradition of And the Band Played On, award-winning journalist Shaun Assael looks at America's complicated love affair with steroids and how it has become the country's greatest drug addiction. The Formula chronicles steroid use far beyond the headlines - from the bodybuilders in Venice Beach in the 1970s, the L.A./Oakland Raiders in the ‘80s and ‘90s to the baseball scandals of today - to present a chilling portrait of a nation enamored of artificially pumped-up success. Assael's incomparable reporting has also uncovered dramatic story of the godfather of the movement itself: Daniel Duchaine, who wrote The Original Underground Steroid Handbook in 1981.
Part detective story, part medical investigation, part sociological examination, The Formula is a groundbreaking work on the most compelling story in the sports world today.
About the Author
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Shaun Assael is an award-winning investigative writer with ESPN The Magazine and the ESPN expert on steroids. He has also written two books: a chronicle of the 1996 NASCAR season called Wide Open, and an unauthorized biography of the WWE's Vince McMahon, "Sex, Lies & Headlocks," a New York Times bestseller.