SURFING SOAPBOX: A life wasted on drugs

In the realm of knowing, there are only two things that I do know — that you never know and that my love for the ocean is unwavering. The past couple of days of uncanny sunshine have reaffirmed that. There’s no denying that I have a special connection with the ocean.

My love is as strong today as it was the first day that I stood up on my first wave, surfing. Perhaps even stronger. Surfing for me was always my savior — a church of sorts — and every day I couldn’t wait to go and pray on those waves. I’ve lost some good friends along the way to drugs and alcohol. Luckily, it was the ocean that kept me on the right path.

Losing my best friend to cocaine still hurts. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of him. We grew up together surfing, and then something happened. He began choosing drugs over surfing. He surfed less and less, and well, soon he chose drugs over everything.

Family. Friends. Surfing.

Soon drugs were his world.

He’s been in and out of prison for more than a decade now. I’ve been waiting for that phone call for almost as long. The phone call in which I hear he’s dead. I could never understand how one could put their loved ones through such pain.

I’m struggling here, with how two lives could begin in such similar fashion and then go in such opposite directions. I’m grateful for the choices and decisions that I have made. Because life really does come down to that, making the right choices.

The last couple of days have been like magic to me. Nothing is better than a beautiful day at the beach. Being in the ocean and looking around at all of the beauty that surrounds it. The garibaldi swimming below with the sunshine reflecting above. Watching the reefs splish-splash, with the green eel grass and different-colored starfish clinging to it. Personally speaking, I’ll choose the beach every day, and I have.

Drugs don’t discriminate: Not only will they take your best friend, but they will take you if you let them. Make the right choice.

Peace.

JAMES PRIBRAM is a Laguna Beach native, professional surfer and John Kelly Environmental Award winner. His websites include AlohaSchoolofSurfing and ECOWarrior Surf.com. He can be reached at Jamo@Aloha SchoolofSurfing.com