“When my parents divorced, I went buck wild. Their problems became my freedom. It didn’t take long before that freedom turned into turbulence. By 16, I was completely addicted to cocaine. It was the beginning of an addiction I would end up battling for years. I tried quitting cold turkey multiple times, but that never ended up working.
I remember looking in the mirror and I was so skinny – I mean rail thin. My cheeks were bony and my eyes were sunken in. I looked like Christian Bale in the Machinist. I knew that if I kept this up, it was only going to be a matter of months before I was dead.
Thankfully, I knew how bad my problem really was. As an addict you’ve gotta know how bad your problem is and be scared enough to fix it. The fear pushes you to stay motivated enough to solve your problem.
My fear drove me to approach my dad and tell him about my addiction. Up until that point, he had been pleasantly naïve about it all. He was a Holocaust survivor and just didn’t want to deal with stuff like that, so, it took me coming to him. When he told me “I understand you have a problem”, that was crucial: it was lifesaving.
He didn’t just kick me out of his house and tell me he wanted nothing to do with me. There was none of that. His non-judgemental and loving approach was exactly what I needed to change my behaviour.
During this period in my life, I had a buddy who had been to the North Shore of Hawaii and had been telling me I needed to go check it out. I had always been into extreme sports so the opportunity to ride some of the best waves in the world was impossible to say no to. Breaks like Pipelines were now my backyard.
With help from my dad, I went down during Christmas break, and something just clicked. I didn’t need coke at all. I was challenged by the ocean, I wanted to be healthier. I wanted to sleep and wake up early to catch the best waves, not stay up all night doing lines and drinking.
It became the total opposite way of life to what I had known in California where I grew up.
Unfortunately, within a month of coming home I went back to doing coke. I deluded myself into thinking that if I started smoking it instead of snorting it, then it would allow me to put the addiction behind me, but I was full of shit.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the North Shore was calling me to something deeper. I couldn’t wait to go back. I just knew that I wouldn’t feel the itch at all. So, I packed my bags, went back to Hawaii the following year and swore to myself that I would never do cocaine again.
The coolest thing about going to the North Shore this time in May, rather than October, is that you have months of just flat, easy, waves. No action. No lineups. For someone that needs to detox, train, eat and get his head right this was the perfect place to be.
This period was the most definitive moment of my life. I discovered that environment and purpose is everything. Hawaii and surfing equipped me with a playful and relaxed frame of mind which enabled me to kick my addiction.
Relinquishing my cocaine habit granted me with a focus that had escaped me for years. It enabled me to hone my skills and I ended up becoming a professional mountain biker, which forced me to move back to California. However, one race brought me down to Waimea Bay in Hawaii.
After the race, I was hanging at the back of a truck with a bunch of mountain biking pros. We had just finished our race and were looking out at Waimea Bay, where surfers were dropping in on 20- and 30-foot waves. One of the racers in my group spoke up and said how much he wished he could do what those surfers were doing right before our eyes.
In that moment I remember the voice in my head yelling at me: Hey, I can do that! What am I doing here with these people? That is an incredible thing those guys are doing, and I can do that! What the fuck am I doing?
Within the year I completely dropped mountain biking and ended up dedicating my life to surfing, specifically big wave surfing. I bought a jet ski to get towed into some of the biggest waves on the planet and now spend most of my time in Nazare, Portugal – where you can find me riding 100-foot waves with nothing but a calm, clear mind.”
– The Cocaine Surfer
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