Find Real Connection

Skateboarder Brandon Turner, 39, built a lucrative career as a child prodigy in the 1990s but suffered from alcohol dependency. It wasn’t until he got sober that he broke through after you land tricks, you celebrate with beers,” says Turner. “Landing a trick was like getting a job promotion. So, at the skate park, it was a constant celebration.” The party ended, though, when Turner served a 17-month sentence for two DUIs (driving under the influence) between 2013 and 2014. He was 31 at the time.

Prison introduced him to AA meetings, and Turner realised that maybe it wasn’t skateboarding culture that was to blame for his addiction. Maybe it was him. After Turner left prison, he entered a 12-step programme and told his skateboarding friends that he was sober. “They were proud of me,” he

says. “That made me want to keep going.”

In June 2020, he founded a skating programme with Healthy Life Recovery in San Diego, in which he teaches the basics of the sport to aspiring skateboarders in recovery. “When you’re suffering, you tend to live in your head and have that feeling that you’re the only one going through it,” he says. “But being part of a community of people going through the same thing, you now have this new support.”

For Turner, support means more than just being around skateboarders. “I’m constantly checking emails and responding to messages from people who are trying to get help,” he says. “But it’s not just about getting sober. It’s about connection.”

“In skateboarding culture,