158 Thrasherow did you become a user of
drugs and/or alcohol?
The first memory I have of drugs and
alcohol is from my early youth, around third
or fourth grade when I saw some older kids
drinking and smoking weed. I devised a plan
with my friend to steal a bottle of vodka from
his parents and another kid had stolen some
weed from his parents. We all met up and got
wasted. I was on a mission to continue the
party from there on out for a long time.
I think that partying has always been glorified
in movies and media, so that had an impact.
I was especially influenced by older “cool”
kids too.
When did you realize you had a problem?
That was a tricky thing for me to figure out,
as I somehow always seemed to keep going
while I was partying. Although I have heavily
experimented with all types of drugs in my
lifetime, I was fortunate enough to mainly
only drink alcohol and smoke weed, so for
many years I always thought I had them in
control. I would take breaks here and there,
but eventually I would always find myself
back in hardcore party mode. As I got older
the effects of partying started to weigh me
down. I couldn’t skate like I once did and the
hangovers became worse and worse. I started
to find myself at a crossroads in life and was
uncertain what my future held, so I turned to
drinking to try and forget some of the reality I
was faced with. This only made things worse
though and eventually I drank myself into the
darkest state of being I was ever in. I became
something I knew I wasn’t and felt like I was
in so deep that there was no turning back,
so I decided I would try and just party until I
died. One night in particular I really went for
it and completely blacked out. I woke up the
next day with the worst hangover and realized
I was still alive. That’s the day where I started
to think I really needed to stop.How bad did it get? What was the
breaking point that made you decide it
was time to stop/get help?
My partying definitely had a snowball effect, it
just slowly but surely became out of control.
Like I said, I had a night where I basically
tried to kill myself without putting a gun to
my head. I just tried to consume an inhuman
amount of alcohol and drugs to do the job,
but somehow I survived and started to think
it was for a reason, but continued to still party
for a few more months. During that time I
hurt my back while drinking, made a fool of
myself on several occasions and got arrested.
Blacking out became a common activity. I
woke up the day after getting arrested and
was in jail still. I didn’t even remember getting
arrested. I didn’t even know I was in jail when
I first woke up. At that moment I told myself
that the party was over, for good.How did you get sober?
I just quit right then and right there, coldturkey as they say. I was done. I just thought
to myself, If I died that night would people
remember me as this old pro skater who just
became a drunk and killed himself, and not
remember all the positive things that I was proud
of myself for? I didn’t want to be remembered
as something that I knew I wasn’t. I wanted to
use this mind and body from here on out and
not abuse them any longer than I already had.
As for most things in my life, if I wanted this
done right, I had to make the decision to do it
myself.
What are the challenges of staying
sober?
The only challenges of staying sober for me
came at first, the first few months, it was the
challenge of breaking a routine that I had
been on for most of my life. I had to separate
myself from a social circle where partying all
night long was normal. I had to stop and really
look at myself as the person I truly was and
not the party animal that I had become alongH
CHAD MUSKA
STRAND