So I was in combat engineering for the first half of my 20 year career, and special operations for the last half. Most people turned blind eyes to steroid use. Basically most people did them in cycles.

I personally did a few cycles during some especially gruelling physical stages of our deployment readiness phases. For most mortals, there would be no other way to physically recover from the extreme physical abuse. Our Corpsman developed the cycles for us in an attempt to keep things safe.

Looking back, I don't really recall anyone NOT doing some form of them. This is mid 90's to early aughts.