Out the Kleptocracy: Dr. Peter Breggin Blog: What Lance Armstrong and Bernie Madoff Have in Common

What do Lance Armstrong and Bernie Madoff have in common? Are they a different species from each other and from us? No, they are all too human. Like many of us, they want to be superhuman. The difference from the rest of us? They feel driven and entitled to go for it at any cost.

It starts out with feeling entitled to get what you want no matter what. You want to look good and be great, without the work it takes.

It's like being the "Great Impostor." Lance and Bernie alike are great impostors. The goal is power and glory -- without the work, but even more so without the risk of failure and humiliation.

A subsidiary goal involves looking benevolent and being adored. You're on the board of charities, you give away some of your money, without letting out what a paltry amount it really is compared to what you're stealing.

If you are lucky enough to succeed through your lies like sports dopers who break all the records, like dishonest politicians who rise to the top, or like fraudulent investors who become wealthy -- then you are stuck living the fiction forever. Your lies become the very fabric of your life and there's no turning back. It's not that you believe your lies; you're not stupid. You cannot live without your lies. If the truth comes out, then it's all over for you.

Lance Armstrong is among the most successful dopers of all time, but there are lots of lesser dopers as well, right down to the lawyer who takes cocaine up his nose to keep up his courage and energy in the face of his upcoming trial.

Some dopers and financial frauds need a group in order to succeed. They need co-conspirators. Lance had his team, Bernie his family. They may even feel some loyalty. The pressure of lying and the fear of getting caught sets the little group apart, a kind of mini-cult that breeds an "us against the world" mentality. It keeps up their spirits while they lie and cheat. But these attachments are likely to fall apart when the truth comes out, and when the scandals and the prosecutions begin.

A comparison to drug abuse and lying in childhood can be enlightening. Working with families as a therapist, I see children begin to lie when they feel alienated from their parents or fearful that they cannot meet their expectations. The lying becomes a habit, so easy to use, and so automatic, the child seemingly cannot let go of it.

The answer for children is not punishment but a rebuilding of trust. I tell these children -- and they get it -- that lying is like drug addiction. It seems easy and even indispensable, but it will make them feel more alone and even less able to succeed or gain approval in the normal ways.

Then I work with the parents to help them to guide their children toward more fulfilling lives.
If and when children start using drugs or alcohol, the gulf between themselves and their parents grows. Lying becomes yet more embedded in their lives. The chemical "high" that they get replaces their shattered dreams of being successful, respected and loved in the real world. It's similar to doping, but in doping the individual is actually working at something, and the high comes from reaching superhuman greatness, power and glory, regardless of the cost.

With the child, setting limits and trust building can help to change the youngster's life. Any child with the right help can outgrow the shortcuts and detours of lying and drug abuse or addiction.

What about remorse when adults like Lance Armstrong or Bernie Madoff see the light and 'fess up in public?

Lance Armstrong is now playing the "mea culpa" card. Don't believe it. The odds are overwhelming that he's too embedded in a life of lies to work his way out of it. Besides, he's still under assault from a teammate-turned-whistleblower, and the U.S. Department of Justice may be going after him. He wants to hang on to the shreds of his life and to protect his embattled fortune. He'll do what he does best, without or with drugs. He'll lie.

Remorse?

He left that behind decades ago.

Peter R. Breggin, M. D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York, and the author of more than twenty books and dozens of scientific articles. His most relevant book to this blog is The Heart of Being Helpful. His most recent book is Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their Families.

His professional website is www.breggin.com. Dr. Breggin's national nonprofit organization, The Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, is holding its annual conference in Syracuse, New York in April of this year.

Learn about the organization and conference at www.empathictherapy.org.

They Earn Their Money the Old Fashioned Way -- They Cheat Dept.: Cyclist Lance Armstrong

FYI: If I Did A Bag Of Lance Armstrong's Blood, Could I Bike Up A Mountain?

No surprise: performance enhancers enhance performance. But they might not give me the instant mountain-scaling boost I want.

by Colin Lecher Posted 10.12.2012

Lance Armstrong Wikimedia Commons

Hundreds of pages of fairly damning evidence came out against Lance Armstrong this week, accusing him of not only using performance enhancements but also of being "a bully" and developing "a culture of doping." It all leads to an obvious question: What about me? If I got up from my desk and injected some high-octane Armstrong juice, could I, too, win the Tour de France?

No. But if I replicated his (alleged) process, I might be able to get up a mountain I couldn't get up before.

Here's a list of some stuff Armstrong is accused of doing--call it the Armstrong Cocktail. Let's go down the list.

BLOOD DOPING

This is something of a catch-all term, says Don Catlin, a pharmacologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Most of the time, people use it to describe a blood transfusion process that can improve athletic performance. The general idea is to take blood--either from yourself (an autologous transfusion) or--if you're in mid-Tour, say--from another, compatible donor (a homologous transfusion).

You then concentrate it to separate the red blood cells, and inject it before a race. (Armstrong is accused of using the autologous method.) Either way, the extra red blood cells can increase endurance quite a bit--according to one study, improving stamina up to 34 percent.

Erythropoietin (EPO), which was also mentioned in the allegations, is another way of increasing the concentration of red blood cells in your blood. It's a naturally occurring hormone, usually given to anemic patients, that can stimulate the body to create more red blood cells.

For men, standard hematocrit (the proportion of red cells to other stuff) is about 44 to 45 percent. Most testing regulations, Catlin says, dictate that competitors will be flagged if hematocrit is above 50 percent. So: "They aim for 49 and a half percent."

How much would I improve?

Potentially, my stamina could increase 34 percent. That could make the climb up a hill a lot easier.

TESTOSTERONE

This is complicated. Conventional wisdom dictates that you won't get anywhere taking testosterone or other steroids if you aren't already training, but a few studies have come out contradicting that assessment, says Charles Yesalis, an emeritus professor of sports science at Pennsylvania State University.

But either way, it's going to be a much bigger increase for people who train regularly, or even semi-regularly, than for people who don't. Similarly, women, who produce between one-tenth and one-fifteenth the testosterone of men, will see a much bigger increase in performance, Yesalis says.

Even for the regular person, there's some variability in how you'll react to steroids--it might be a huge increase for someone, and next to nothing for someone else. But even the low end could have "a profound effect," Yesalis says. Catlin estimates that between a 5 and 15 percent improvement in cycling speed would be "expected," although, again, that could go up or down depending on how the person reacts to the dope. (We don't know exactly why, physiologically, people vary in their reactions, but Yesalis says there's going to be some increase for anyone.)

How much would I improve?

Let's take the low end: 5 percent. I'm just an average cyclist, after all. Still, that shaves quite a few hours off my completion of the 21-day Tour.

HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE (HGH)

This one's a no-go in some ways: Athletes use it, but this hormone, which makes it easier for competitors to increase muscle mass over the long term, hasn't been definitively proven to increase strength or endurance.

Although one study did find a four percent increase in sprinters' performance, what's more commonly reported that is that it decreases the recuperative time between training; that's widely, if anecdotally, reported, Yesalis says. It's tough to say how much that adds up to mathematically, but being able to train more could increase my performance, if I felt like training.

How much would I improve?

Hard to say.

CORTICOSTEROIDS (CORTISONE)

This is used as a way to mask pain caused by workouts, thereby letting a cyclist (or whoever) compete more efficiently. Generally, they're a way to reduce inflammation in people experiencing pain, but they can give athletes a boost in the same way by letting them keep going--no pain, lots of gain. Hard to quantify, but I definitely plan on using plenty.

How much would I improve?

Same as above. Inconclusive.

SALINE AND PLASMA INFUSIONS

This doesn't directly give athletes any increase in performance; it's more of a way to foil drug tests. When competitors are blood doping, sometimes they "overshoot," Catlin says: The amount of red blood cells goes over that 50 percent mark (or whatever the mark is) and they'll be sit out of competition.

So, to balance out the equation, dopers will add saline or plasma to their system, bringing the proportion back down to acceptable (but still performance-enhancing) levels.

How much would I improve?

None.

SO CAN I BIKE UP A MOUNTAIN YET?

Sure! Especially if I aim for a mountain that I can bike up already.

It's hard to say exactly how these boosts "stack," Yesalis says--that is, whether two percentage increases can be combined neatly or whether you have to factor them into a complicated curve. For the most part, these are small increases, which can make a lot of difference in a top-tier race that comes down to a second or, in longer races, the minute.

To get up that mountain, I'd need to be able to climb most of the mountain (80 or 90 percent maybe) without help. If there's a mountain that's your own personal white whale, that you're within a few more pushes toward slaying, the Armstrong Cocktail could do it.

Remember, though, that it also depends on the person. A woman would get more out of the testosterone increases than a man; some people will see more improvement from steroid use in general; a regular cyclist who continues training while doping will see more of an improvement.

Will I see a boost from this? Yes, probably. How much will it be? Not as much as Lance (allegedly) saw.

Conclusion? Probably not worth it. I am not going to transfuse my blood just yet.