ATLAS is designed to reduce risk factors for use of anabolic steroids and other drugs while providing healthy sports-nutrition and strength-training alternatives. Coaches and teammates facilitate curriculum delivery with scripted manuals in small cooperative learning groups, taking advantage of an influential coaching staff and the team atmosphere in which peers share common goals. Student athletes receiving the ATLAS program report better understanding of the effects of anabolic steroids and other drugs, greater belief in personal vulnerability to the adverse effects of anabolic steroids, and more certainty that their parents and coaches are intolerant of drug use. The ATLAS athletes demonstrated greater drug refusal skills, less belief in steroid-promoting media images, more confidence in their personal ability to build muscle and strength without anabolic steroids, greater self-esteem, and less desire to use steroids. They maintained better nutrition and exercise behaviors one year after the intervention. The program contains four booster sessions for each subsequent year of high school.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Model Program (PDF)

National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1997, Effective Program

U.S. Department of Education, Exemplary Program