Professional skateboarder Erik Ellington was never just another skater.
Back in the late nineties and early 2000s he was rolling with the Piss Drunx crew. It was straight booze, pills, blow, blackouts, fights, and skating like you did not care if you woke up the next day.
That crew had a rep for being reckless and untouchable. Ellington was right in the middle of it. He partied like every night was the last, and the more he skated drunk or high, the more it felt normal.
But things went down that changed his life forever. That is why he is no longer Piss Drunx.
On the Not A Damn Chance podcast, Ellington opened up about his struggles with drugs and alcohol and how he fought to get sober.
He told the story of being in Colorado on a skate tour with Jon Dickson and Bryan Herman. They were out one night drinking and hanging out like skaters do after a session.
With the long hair and the look they had, they stood out. In some towns that alone made them a target.
That night a group of guys came over. Ellington remembers it clearly. One of them started talking sh*t, slapped him on the back, then sat right next to him. “You know when that moment is coming,” he said. “Dude slaps you on the back, runs his mouth, gets in your face. You know what’s next.”
Ellington had a pint glass in his hand. Instead of letting it slide, he smashed it straight into the guy’s face and went at him.
The glass cut the man’s neck bad. “It f***ed him up pretty bad,” Ellington admitted.
Five or six people tried to jump him right after, but he slipped out and made it back to the hotel. His freedom did not last long. Police showed up and arrested him.
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The charge was heavy. Felony first degree assault with a deadly weapon. Because the glass cut the man’s neck, the court treated it like he came in armed. “I may as well have walked in with a pistol and started shooting people,” he said.
The case dragged for over a year. Fourteen months of waiting, court dates, and stress. Ellington had money to hire a law firm in Colorado to fight for him, but the risk was real.
Thirty years on the line. He started going to Alcoholics Anonymous. He took anger management classes. He needed anything that could make the court see him as more than just the dude who cut someone’s neck in a bar fight.
At first he stayed sober because he had no choice. He admitted he was doing it so the judge would go easier on him. But over time the meetings hit him different. He thought about his life and his family. His kids were still little back then. The thought of missing their childhood and sitting in prison for decades hit him hard.
That is when it clicked. “I was 99 percent just trying to not go to jail,” he said. “But that one percent, blaming myself and admitting I was wrong, that was what changed me.”
When the case finally wrapped up, the judge gave him probation. Five years and two felonies on his record. No prison time.
The judge believed the work he was putting in, the sobriety, the effort to change. He escaped what could have been the end of everything.
Ellington even joked later about how he thought through the options. Take the five to six years if you have to. “Or you flee the country you know. But that was not an option either,” he said.
For a long time he kept the story to himself. He did not want people to know how close he came to throwing his life away.
But eventually he opened up. He said he wants people to see you can mess up bad and still get another shot if you are willing to own it.
Looking back he believes that night in Colorado was the reason he is still alive and sober today.
Without it he might have kept drinking and using until it killed him. Instead he faced his mistakes, took his probation, and turned his life around.