Roger Cox: Are you a surf addict?

Is it possible to be addicted to surfing? I mean actually, physically, clinically addicted? It sounds like a silly question – flippant, almost, considering how many people are hooked on much more serious things like drugs and booze and internet shopping – but an article in this month's edition of Surfer magazine has had me obsessively scouring the NHS website to see if the thing I've thought of as a harmless pastime for the last 20-odd years is, in fact, a bona fide medical condition.

The article in question was written by regular *Surfer contributor Brad Melekian, and it skates thought-provokingly around the subject without ever really arriving at a concrete conclusion. Now, I've got nothing against a little chin-stroking vagueness – as regular readers will be aware, this column is usually full of it – but on this occasion I decided that a degree of empiricism was required. So, using myself as a case study, and with a little help from the NHS's online addiction guide I've come up with the following point-by point, symptom-by-symptom self-assessment. So am I an addict?

"Addiction is most commonly associated with gambling, drugs, alcohol and nicotine, but it's possible to be addicted to anything," states the NHS guide. So, on the surface at least, it should be possible to be addicted to surfing. Or beekeeping. Or breeding miniature horses. So far, so vague.

"There are many reasons why addictions begin..." and a million and one different paths into the surfing life, little grasshopper. More vagueness. Something concrete please. "In the case of drugs, alcohol and nicotine, these substances affect the way you feel, both physically and mentally."

OK, that actually does sound like surfing. Before a surf, particularly a mid-week, post-work surf, I usually feel like a wound-up, strung-out office drone, but when I get out of the water and walk back up the beach in the gloaming at the end of a session I feel calm like a Zen master, albeit a Zen master with wetsuit rash, noodle-arm and a stiff neck. So yeah, physical and mental effects: "check" and "check".

"These feelings can be enjoyable and create a powerful urge to use the substances again. Gambling may result in a similar mental 'high' after a win, followed by a strong urge to try again and recreate that feeling."

Too right. Substitute the word "gambling" for the word "surfing" and that sentence still makes perfect sense. For me, and for most other surfers I know, life is a continual struggle to catch a better wave than the one you just caught and surf it better, go faster, turn harder. That's why I'll always paddle out for "just one more," even when the swell's dropping, it's getting too dark to see and I'm so tired I can barely put one hand in front of the other.

"Being addicted to something means that not having it causes withdrawal symptoms or a 'come down'."

True again – the surfing life is full of peaks and troughs. For a day or two after a good surf I'm not all that bothered about what the waves are doing – I'm satisfied, sated, pleasantly surfed out. After three or four days, though, I'll start checking the wave and weather forecasts every couple of hours. Catch me at the end of a two week flat spell in the middle of July I'll be twitchier than Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

"Often, an addiction gets out of control because you need more and more to satisfy a craving and achieve the 'high.'"

In surfing terms, I wonder if this could account for the behaviour of big wave specialists such as Greg Long and Grant "Twiggy" Baker – guys who constantly circle the globe in search of life-threatening waves in the 20-foot and over range. I'm pretty sure it'll never apply to me because I'm a scaredy cat in big surf. In pharmaceutical terms I suppose that makes me a class B kinda guy.

"The strain of managing an addiction can seriously damage a person's work and relationships."

Here's where I diverge from the surfing norm slightly: I'm blessed with a long-suffering boss who understands and tolerates my condition and – praise be to King Neptune and his big spiky trident – a partner who also surfs. Were this not the case, though, I can see how surfing could play havoc with both my work and my personal life. The expressions "surf bum" and "surf widow" didn't come about by accident.

So am I a surf addict? I suppose I must be. I guess maybe everyone's addicted to something – it's just that some people get luckier with their addictions than others.

This article was first published in the Scotsman, May 8, 2010