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The former professional surfer tells his own story

On the surface he was Tom Carroll, dreamer, brilliant surfer, Australian sports hero, fitness fanatic, businessman, family man, and big wave charger. But inside turned the terrible wheel of drug addiction—part family curse, part legacy of the footloose surf culture he’d done so much to legitimize. Tom’s family and friends struggled with him, kept his secrets, and looked on in anger and fear as the wheel began to grind him down. Then a window opened, but getting through it made charging Pipeline look like a piece of cake. This is the story of an unlikely moral education: of humility, family, damage, brotherhood, youth, stupidity, glory, single-mindedness, and surrender, and about the feeling of water moving under a surfboard, how it can bind past to present and make sense of lives.

Tom Carroll is a former professional surfer. Nick Carroll is one of the world's best known surf writers. He edited Australia'sTracks magazine before spending several years as editor-in-chief of Western Empire, which publishesSurfing Magazine. More recently he has begun working in television.