Staying Strong: An Immensely Human Story by Murray Stephen

Author:Murray, Stephen [Murray, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gatecrasher Books
Published: 2017-07-16T04:00:00+00:00

12. THE ROAD BACK

It wasn’t until the end of 2006 that I fully realised how fucked up my life had become, drifting in all the wrong directions, any which way. It took me a long time to come to terms with what I was doing, but I finally hit the nail on the head. The realisation came about six months before the 2007 Dew Tour. I was still smoking stupid amounts of weed. I was getting up in the night to smoke, smoking while I was driving – stupid dumb shit! It was like I went from being a fully fledged party animal to being a husband and father and having responsibilities so quick, I couldn’t adjust to the transition. It took me completely by surprise and I thought weed and meds would help me through it. I should’ve been on a whole other level, but I wasn’t.

Guys like Ryan Guettler and Corey Bohan and Luke Parslow were dominating the dirt contests. There was an influx of young, fearless Australian riders and watching them was like a wake-up call for me. I could see myself in them when I first came to California. It was like looking at me then and now. And it was a shock to my drugged-up system. This started to mess with my head – what was left of my head after all the pill-popping and weed-smoking. I was known as a rider who’d give 110% going for first place. I was never one of those people who just settled for something. I heard Rob Indri inside my brain –

‘Go big or go home!’

I was looking for a way to reignite the fire. I had to prove to myself that I could win at the top level again. I had to take a step back and try to process what I was doing. I had to find some way to snatch my life back out of the jaws of assholeness. But I’d made things real hard and weighed myself down with the painkillers and the weed and shit and it’d take a big effort to change my ways and get back on the level. I knew what I was doing wrong – I was in with the wrong crowd and out of BMX. But knowing what you’re doing wrong isn’t enough, you gotta know how to get back to doing right.

There was this best-selling book called The Secret that was written by Rhonda Byrne and published in 2006. Melissa got me the DVD and I started to watch it. It was based on what they called the ‘law of attraction’. All about positive thinking bringing you health, wealth and increased happiness. OK, I was sceptical, I’d heard all that shit before. There was loads of motivational stuff like that out there – especially in California, which is the home of the guru and the gullible. But I watched it and what it did tell me was that I was responsible for the way my life was. I was responsible for the negative elements that were bringing me down.

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