Over It: Skaters, Drugs, + Alcohol | Why + How w/ some of Skateboardings Greatest
Reading this article about skateboarders who have either overcome addiction or never touched the stuff to begin with reads like a Greatest Skaters of All Time List. What’s that say about skateboarding? It’s a heavy read that was a long time coming. ELISSA STEAMER, ALI BOULALA, ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN, ARTO SAARI, GUY MARIANO, ANDREW REYNOLDS, TYSHAWN JONES, KEVIN LONG, CHAD MUSKA, and SEAN SHEFFEY all come through with inspirational stories.
Sample from AVE:
How bad did it get? What was the breaking point that made you decide it was time to stop/get help?
It just became the daily life of getting high or figuring out how I was going to score. I stayed on that program for about four years. And then you’ve got all the shit that goes on in between. When your sitting in crack motels, getting high, running around skid row with people that have been doing that shit for 20 years you see a lot of sad shit. I remember having a moment one time in one of these places seeing what was going on around me and couldn’t believe how shitty and far down my life had become and these types of scenes were regular occurrences over the years. I was lucky to have a couple moments of clarity ‘cause that grimy lifestyle becomes an addiction in itself. But really, man, it just became such a mental and emotional bottom that was the nightmare for me. I was really lucky that my bottom with drugs and alcohol didn’t have the end results that usually come with that life. I’ve had friends and a family member lose their life over this shit. I watched my father go in and out of prison most of my life growing up, all due to drugs and alcohol. So I’m really grateful that wasn’t my destiny. ‘Cause I was getting really close to all that shit. I really believe something was watching over me. Getting sober didn’t work for me like that. There wasn’t a breaking point. Really, I look at it more like at 26 I started to back outta the woods of alcohol and drugs. I was lucky that I didn’t lose all my sponsors. I still had something to look forward to, and people that believed in me and I was really tired of the life I was living. And I fucking missed skating. So I started going to a program to get sober and started skating a lot again. But there were relapses from 26-30 years old. I just started getting stretches of time sober and certainly when you stop for periods of time and get back to life with periods of abstinence from drugs and alcohol some things naturally get better. So it was at 30 that I truly asked for help. It was an emotional, spiritual bottom along with being on a trip and a friend and teammate tragically passing away. That’s when I decided to finally take the advice of people who were in some of the programs I was attending here and there. ‘Cause I truly started to discover that drug and alcohol use was just a symptom of my problem. I was miserable, just not drinking. I had deeper issues that I finally needed to face and truly work on.
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Click to THRASHER to read Over It
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