« Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Jay Adams »

Back in February ’03, we put together a feature for Skateboarder asking a wide cross section of pros, past and present if they believed skateboarding was inherently tied to drug use. For each person involved I pretty much did a full interview. As editing goes, the final printed text was usually a small snippet of the longer interviews compiled. In the next few weeks/months I’ll be posting some of the full text from those conversations. For this first post, here is the father of bad boy skateboarding—Jay Adams. —ME

JAY ADAMS:

“For me and my generation, our parents were from the '60s and we were like '60s children so drugs were a big part of everything. For the Dogtowners it was like if you didn’t do drugs, you couldn’t even hang out. It became a big part of our scene. There were guys that didn’t do drugs but to us they were just square.”

“I started off pretty much like everybody else—smoking weed and drinking, then taking pills, uppers and downers. Then in the 80s everybody started with cocaine. Eventually I wound up on heroin. Right before I went to jail, that was when it got really bad. I mean my whole life before that had revolved around skating and surfing waves. Even if I was partying or whatever, I still would wake up early and go surf. But it evolved to a point where my addiction blocked out everything else in my life and took over. Then nothing else even matters except the drugs. That’s when I became like any other junkie.”

“Once you become a professional skateboarder you get all these people coming up and offering you drugs. It’s real easy to get caught up in. I mean, I’d wake up every morning and tell myself, ‘What the fuck am I going to do today to get high’. I’d have to get loaded before I could even leave my house. I could not enjoy myself if I was not high. There’s a mental addiction but it was physical too because I was shooting heroin for a couple years. The craving you get for crack is also really fucking strong.”

“It all depends on how far you take it. There’s a huge difference between somebody smoking heroin or having a few beers after work to the guy pounding a fifth of fucking tequila or shooting heroin on a daily basis. There are some functioning addicts out there. I’m not one of them.  But I’m not going to lie and tell kids, ‘Hey, if you smoke one joint or drink a beer, you’re going down, buddy.’ It ain’t like that. But the potential for doom is definitely there. Being a functioning drug addict is like winning the lottery. It happens, but it probably ain’t gonna happen to you. So why chance it.”

“No matter how far gone you are, you can overcome it. Over time, the feeling isn’t that bad anymore. Eventually you get used to being sober. Its something you’ve got to work at. But I fucking dig being sober now. At one time in my life, if somebody told me that I’d be like, ‘Fuck you, what are you talking about!?’”

“I just finished two and a half years in jail. I was out on bail and turned myself in. I slammed dope in the parking lot and went in really high. That was the last time I used. I just decided that it was enough. I had tried to go through rehabs and all this other loser shit but for me it wasn’t going to happen until I decided it was done.”

“I think hiding it is bullshit. My whole drug addiction, I never hid it. I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, I’m doing heroin. I’m sniffing paint if I want to. And fuck you if you don’t like it.’ Some guys are gonna keep everything in the closet, like their homosexuality and rollerblading past. But, I don’t think skating should be promoted as some squeaky-clean little pussy sport. We got animals in this. Skateboarding used to be a bunch of crazy fuckers running around. But you can be a crazy fucker without being a drug addict.”

“I was getting ‘Suicidal’ tattooed on my stomach one time, drinking tequila, and half way through the tattoo I guess I blacked out. Supposedly, I smashed the bottle on the ground and ran out of the parlor. I woke up the next day strapped to a hospital bed with an I.V. in my arm and a half finished tattoo. I tore off the I.V., walked out of the hospital, and found my car right next to where I bought my heroin. Since I hadn’t done it in a couple weeks, and I was drinking, I shot up at a friend’s house and OD’d. The guy I used to share with just left me for like three or four hours, lying there, foaming at the mouth in his apartment. When I finally came to, I was naked. I guess the guy had tried to drag me into the shower and took my clothes. I ran out of the apartment and was running down the street naked when the cops stopped me and brought me back to the hospital.”

“I was shooting cocaine one time and thought these monsters were outside my door. All of a sudden, I dove out the window and ran to my friends’ house. I was banging on the door at like three in the morning and his 70-year-old mom answered the door. I was like, ‘They’re after me, call 911’ She turns on the light and I freaked out, ‘What are you doing? They’re gonna see the light.” I was like, ‘Fuck this, she’s in on the whole thing.’ I flipped out, jumped off their two-story balcony barefoot, cell phone in hand, and broke my foot on the landing. If you want to fuck with drugs for real and get good at it, that’s the kind of shit you’re going to be living.”

“Nobody is going to rescue you or help you until you want to help yourself. No matter how many fucking little slogans you learn or meetings you go to nothing’s going to help you until you’re ready.”