In this revelatory and original book, award-winning author of the
acclaimed surf memoir On a Wave illuminates the connection between
waves, addiction, and recovery, exploring what surfing can teach us
about the powerful undertow of addictive behaviors and the ways to swim
free of them.
Addiction is arguably the dominant feature of contemporary life: sex,
gambling, exercise, eating, shopping, Internet use--there's virtually no
pleasurable activity that can't morph into a destructive obsession. For
Americans under the age of fifty-five, the leading cause of death is
drug overdose. But there is another side of addiction.
In some instances, the very activities that can lead to addiction can
also lead out of it. As neurologists have recently discovered, surfing
is a kind of study in the mechanism of addiction, delivering dopamine to
the "pleasure" center of the brain and reshaping priorities and desire
in a feedback loop of narrowing focus. Thad Ziolkowski knows this
dynamic intimately. A lifelong surfer, he has been surrounded by
addiction since his boyhood. In this unique, groundbreaking book, part
addiction memoir, part sociological study, part spiritual odyssey,
Ziolkowski dismantles the myth of surfing as a radiantly wholesome
lifestyle immune to the darker temptations of the culture and discovers
among the rubble a new way to understand and ultimately overcome
addiction.
Combining his own story with insights from scientists, progressive
thinkers and the experiences of top surfers and addicts from around the
world, Ziolkowski shows how getting on a board and catching a wave is a
unique and deeply instructive means of riding out of the darkness and
back into the light. Yet while surfing is his salvation, its lessons can
applied to other activities that can pull us free from the lethal
undertow of addiction and save lives.
