This segment from 4bi9's Begging for Change was, in my eyes, the greatest display of skiing that I have ever been capable of. I’m more proud of this segment than any other. When 4bi9 dropped 'Begging for Change', it marked a pivotal point of change in my life.
I was “diagnosed” with ADD in the third grade. It was a notion instigated by a teacher who would look over my shoulder and watch me as I tried to solve basic math problems with great difficulty. It is my understanding that she took this to mean that I had some inability to focus, when in reality, I was just embarrassed and found it difficult to perform while some old wench put that kind of pressure on me. She suggested that my parents take me to a doctor who could “evaluate” me and prescribe me to medication if necessary. My parents, who weren’t informed to the slightest extent, did just that and a cascade of events unfolded. Despite my submissive role, I was fortunate enough to be placed only on a non-stimulant drug known as Strattera. I spent my childhood years up to the age of 18 thinking that I was inadequate and incapable of focus unaided by a crutch.
I moved to Park City, UT after graduating high school. At that point I had stopped taking Stratterra due to some ludicrious notion I held that it was the root cause of bouts of severe anxiety I had started experiencing related to a very close girlfriend at the time. When I started college I discovered Adderall and got prescribed. I took it several times a week for school. I started to fucking kill my academics. I didn’t just feel as though I could accomplish anything academic related; rather, I knew I was an academic. I relished in the feelings that came while I received one A after another. I fucking loved taking it. During the season that Begging for Change was filmed, I started taking the pill periodically when we would shoot. I finally had something that could aid me in my quest for my own vision of perfection in style on skis, and I couldn’t get enough of it. My favorite shots in that segment were filmed while I was on Adderall. The second to last shot of the segment, my favorite shot of my whole ski career, I finally nailed after something like 8 hours of immortal determination fueled by multiple pills. It bothers me, even now, that my greatest display of skiing – that shot – was a product of myself influenced by a drug. It was the ignition point that cascaded events and eventually destroyed my childhood love for skiing.
The following season I skied Park City for opening day. At this point Adderall and skiing was just a go-to for me because I felt inadequate without it – my unaided self simply wasn’t good enough. I hiked the S-rail at the bottom of the park, trying to front swap in the middle of it. At this point I had been skiing for nearly 6 hours straight, hadn’t drank any water, or ate any food. It wasn’t a hard trick by any means but physically I was drained. I slipped off the rail, strattled it, and one of my tips caught a support rail drilling my right knee forcibly onto the metal and jamming my patella out of its socket. It took several months to recover. I was embarassed, not because I had gotten hurt in such a way, but because I was fucked up and not a soul, even my close friends, knew about it. Doctors were shocked by how dehydrated I was and hooked me up to an I.V. so that I could resume to some reasonable numbers.
I started to hate skiing as I recovered. I envied my friends who were still able to, but rather than recognizing that envy head on and coming to the point where I missed it, I just turned away from skiing. That was the first year since the inception of 4bi9 that I didn’t produce a segment. My life began to spiral out of sequence. I almost moved to California, to Orange County to be specific, because I had grown up watching the O.C. with my sisters and thought it looked nice there. I ended up bailing on California and instead decided I wanted to be a doctor. Deep down I was always afraid of being poor so I thought - at this point - with skiing as my nemesis, I would turn to something that could at least secure me financial stability. My thinking was so convoluted. I was furious with girls, thinking that they were all lyers and intent on making ME feel bad. ‘ME of all people, don’t they know what I had been through.’ I missed a girl, the same wonderful girl who I had felt such anxiety towards years prior, to such a desperate extent but didn’t reach out to her because I didn’t want to appear weak. I thought that all women would love me if I was a doctor and that somehow that would bring me relief. I jumped into a world filled with Adderall and drugs, with my goals to be a doctor as an excuse, while my real underlying intentions were to become as unemotional, unreactive, and ‘strong’ as possible. It worked. I didn’t feel much for a while. I kept myself busy with acquiring A’s in Chemistry and Biology courses. I began to feel isolated and sick.
Photo by Rocky Maloney
I took a summer off and traveled to Nicaragua with some close 4bi9 buddies. It was such a relief to not take Adderall or be near any context that could place me in an emotional state. After Nicaragua I traveled to Vietnam for a month, by myself, learned to ride a motorcycle and rode it from North to South. I had the intent of trying to figure out who I was, and I certainly began to, but mostly I just drank copious amounts of beer and tried to relate to people who I couldn’t understand but desperately wanted to – thinking that they somehow had the secret – they probably did.
I spent a wonderful month in Vermont learning to row with my grandfather. I flew back to Utah the day that school began and decided I needed to leave. I packed up everything and left in only three days. My close ski friends thought I had lost my mind. I drove non-stop from Gunnison, CO to Woodstock, VT while consuming what I thought at the time, was a reasonable amount of Adderall. I felt manic when I got back to Vermont. I immediately enrolled in courses at University of Vermont for the fall. Mostly, that fall, I was just miserable and isolated. I took Adderall even when I didn’t need to, even just to read books – collecting knowledge that I cared little for otherwise. At school I frequented bathroom stalls prior to classes to open up capsules in order to consume some portion before a class, even when I had taken pills earlier. I felt like I had to take more in order to do well. I rarely talked to girls I didn’t know, and fortunately there were some good people, girls among them, in the area who were important to me and had a profound impact. The evenings were the worst, I would just lie there on my bed and watch porn for absurd amounts of time – it seemed like the only thing to appease me. Despite all the misery I experienced, I still managed to have fun. Through all of this, those around me didn’t know anything unusual was going on. I saw my parents and family on a frequent basis and caught up with them cheerfully.
I skied five days that winter. On my fifth day, both on Adderall and hungover, I had just landed my first 9 blunt when a small child skied into the landing area of the jump. I saw him with just enough time to stop, my brain seemed to think I was capable more than my body and I felt a twist and pop in my knee.
I was furious and promptly skied on one foot to the base area and walked to my car. This prompted my logical brain into motion.
I must be honest, I resented myself for taking the drug. I never believed that I needed it, even despised the drug itself, yet I continued to take it in some hipocrtical manner. This made everything worse. I was smoking weed and stumbled upon a quote by Robin Williams.
"We are all only given a little spark of madness, we mustn't lose it." – Robin Williams
I suddenly realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life and that that was okay. I wrote some crazy words in my journal about the whole thing, which I hope to share some day, and made a promise to myself that I would never take the pill again. I threw all the pills I had away. I was suddenly fueled by this unbelievable amount of energy. I was becoming rejuvinated. Everything in life began to make more sense. I brought emotion back into my life and started embracing and cherishing it. I feel alive, healthy, and love who I am and my direction in life more than ever.
Through and through, although not a route I would advise, the wisdom I gained was invaluable. Most notably, I realized the importance of the underlying honesty beneath all of our fears and anxieties, and how we can free ourselves from those constraints by being brave. Deep down, we are all aware of the things that we truly want in our life and the things we value. I don’t run from my emotions anymore, I run directly at them. I know the best way to tackle something that’s bothering you is to dive right into it and embrace the feeling until you find the thought, trigger, or event that elicited it.
I’ve given up the feelings of inadequacy that I experienced while comparing my skiing while on Adderall and off. When I get back on skis it will be evident just how absurd such a notion ever was.
I want this to reach any of you who have encountered an addiction, acute or fatal. Addiction comes in the most benign forms. You don't know the effect it has on you until you are told to stop.
I'm done giving up my power to a drug, and I'm done pretending that I'm a skiing syle perfectionist without any feeling or weakness. I am a skier, not an idol. I am a person, and like any person, I have hated a part of myself and taken actions to reclaim my confidence. Don't believe everything you think about your idols.
We are all scared inside.
Thanks for listening.
Reach out to me anytime.
-Andrew
Facebook.com/wingsforyouth
[VIDEO]http://www.newschoolers.com/watch/725195.0/Adderall-and-Skiing[/VIDEO]
I was “diagnosed” with ADD in the third grade. It was a notion instigated by a teacher who would look over my shoulder and watch me as I tried to solve basic math problems with great difficulty. It is my understanding that she took this to mean that I had some inability to focus, when in reality, I was just embarrassed and found it difficult to perform while some old wench put that kind of pressure on me. She suggested that my parents take me to a doctor who could “evaluate” me and prescribe me to medication if necessary. My parents, who weren’t informed to the slightest extent, did just that and a cascade of events unfolded. Despite my submissive role, I was fortunate enough to be placed only on a non-stimulant drug known as Strattera. I spent my childhood years up to the age of 18 thinking that I was inadequate and incapable of focus unaided by a crutch.
I moved to Park City, UT after graduating high school. At that point I had stopped taking Stratterra due to some ludicrious notion I held that it was the root cause of bouts of severe anxiety I had started experiencing related to a very close girlfriend at the time. When I started college I discovered Adderall and got prescribed. I took it several times a week for school. I started to fucking kill my academics. I didn’t just feel as though I could accomplish anything academic related; rather, I knew I was an academic. I relished in the feelings that came while I received one A after another. I fucking loved taking it. During the season that Begging for Change was filmed, I started taking the pill periodically when we would shoot. I finally had something that could aid me in my quest for my own vision of perfection in style on skis, and I couldn’t get enough of it. My favorite shots in that segment were filmed while I was on Adderall. The second to last shot of the segment, my favorite shot of my whole ski career, I finally nailed after something like 8 hours of immortal determination fueled by multiple pills. It bothers me, even now, that my greatest display of skiing – that shot – was a product of myself influenced by a drug. It was the ignition point that cascaded events and eventually destroyed my childhood love for skiing.
The following season I skied Park City for opening day. At this point Adderall and skiing was just a go-to for me because I felt inadequate without it – my unaided self simply wasn’t good enough. I hiked the S-rail at the bottom of the park, trying to front swap in the middle of it. At this point I had been skiing for nearly 6 hours straight, hadn’t drank any water, or ate any food. It wasn’t a hard trick by any means but physically I was drained. I slipped off the rail, strattled it, and one of my tips caught a support rail drilling my right knee forcibly onto the metal and jamming my patella out of its socket. It took several months to recover. I was embarassed, not because I had gotten hurt in such a way, but because I was fucked up and not a soul, even my close friends, knew about it. Doctors were shocked by how dehydrated I was and hooked me up to an I.V. so that I could resume to some reasonable numbers.
I started to hate skiing as I recovered. I envied my friends who were still able to, but rather than recognizing that envy head on and coming to the point where I missed it, I just turned away from skiing. That was the first year since the inception of 4bi9 that I didn’t produce a segment. My life began to spiral out of sequence. I almost moved to California, to Orange County to be specific, because I had grown up watching the O.C. with my sisters and thought it looked nice there. I ended up bailing on California and instead decided I wanted to be a doctor. Deep down I was always afraid of being poor so I thought - at this point - with skiing as my nemesis, I would turn to something that could at least secure me financial stability. My thinking was so convoluted. I was furious with girls, thinking that they were all lyers and intent on making ME feel bad. ‘ME of all people, don’t they know what I had been through.’ I missed a girl, the same wonderful girl who I had felt such anxiety towards years prior, to such a desperate extent but didn’t reach out to her because I didn’t want to appear weak. I thought that all women would love me if I was a doctor and that somehow that would bring me relief. I jumped into a world filled with Adderall and drugs, with my goals to be a doctor as an excuse, while my real underlying intentions were to become as unemotional, unreactive, and ‘strong’ as possible. It worked. I didn’t feel much for a while. I kept myself busy with acquiring A’s in Chemistry and Biology courses. I began to feel isolated and sick.
Photo by Rocky Maloney
I took a summer off and traveled to Nicaragua with some close 4bi9 buddies. It was such a relief to not take Adderall or be near any context that could place me in an emotional state. After Nicaragua I traveled to Vietnam for a month, by myself, learned to ride a motorcycle and rode it from North to South. I had the intent of trying to figure out who I was, and I certainly began to, but mostly I just drank copious amounts of beer and tried to relate to people who I couldn’t understand but desperately wanted to – thinking that they somehow had the secret – they probably did.
I spent a wonderful month in Vermont learning to row with my grandfather. I flew back to Utah the day that school began and decided I needed to leave. I packed up everything and left in only three days. My close ski friends thought I had lost my mind. I drove non-stop from Gunnison, CO to Woodstock, VT while consuming what I thought at the time, was a reasonable amount of Adderall. I felt manic when I got back to Vermont. I immediately enrolled in courses at University of Vermont for the fall. Mostly, that fall, I was just miserable and isolated. I took Adderall even when I didn’t need to, even just to read books – collecting knowledge that I cared little for otherwise. At school I frequented bathroom stalls prior to classes to open up capsules in order to consume some portion before a class, even when I had taken pills earlier. I felt like I had to take more in order to do well. I rarely talked to girls I didn’t know, and fortunately there were some good people, girls among them, in the area who were important to me and had a profound impact. The evenings were the worst, I would just lie there on my bed and watch porn for absurd amounts of time – it seemed like the only thing to appease me. Despite all the misery I experienced, I still managed to have fun. Through all of this, those around me didn’t know anything unusual was going on. I saw my parents and family on a frequent basis and caught up with them cheerfully.
I skied five days that winter. On my fifth day, both on Adderall and hungover, I had just landed my first 9 blunt when a small child skied into the landing area of the jump. I saw him with just enough time to stop, my brain seemed to think I was capable more than my body and I felt a twist and pop in my knee.
I was furious and promptly skied on one foot to the base area and walked to my car. This prompted my logical brain into motion.
I must be honest, I resented myself for taking the drug. I never believed that I needed it, even despised the drug itself, yet I continued to take it in some hipocrtical manner. This made everything worse. I was smoking weed and stumbled upon a quote by Robin Williams.
"We are all only given a little spark of madness, we mustn't lose it." – Robin Williams
I suddenly realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life and that that was okay. I wrote some crazy words in my journal about the whole thing, which I hope to share some day, and made a promise to myself that I would never take the pill again. I threw all the pills I had away. I was suddenly fueled by this unbelievable amount of energy. I was becoming rejuvinated. Everything in life began to make more sense. I brought emotion back into my life and started embracing and cherishing it. I feel alive, healthy, and love who I am and my direction in life more than ever.
Through and through, although not a route I would advise, the wisdom I gained was invaluable. Most notably, I realized the importance of the underlying honesty beneath all of our fears and anxieties, and how we can free ourselves from those constraints by being brave. Deep down, we are all aware of the things that we truly want in our life and the things we value. I don’t run from my emotions anymore, I run directly at them. I know the best way to tackle something that’s bothering you is to dive right into it and embrace the feeling until you find the thought, trigger, or event that elicited it.
I’ve given up the feelings of inadequacy that I experienced while comparing my skiing while on Adderall and off. When I get back on skis it will be evident just how absurd such a notion ever was.
I want this to reach any of you who have encountered an addiction, acute or fatal. Addiction comes in the most benign forms. You don't know the effect it has on you until you are told to stop.
I'm done giving up my power to a drug, and I'm done pretending that I'm a skiing syle perfectionist without any feeling or weakness. I am a skier, not an idol. I am a person, and like any person, I have hated a part of myself and taken actions to reclaim my confidence. Don't believe everything you think about your idols.
We are all scared inside.
Thanks for listening.
Reach out to me anytime.
-Andrew
Facebook.com/wingsforyouth
