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Rocky Romano reached out to professional surfer and methamphetamine addict Anthony Ruffo in September, 2010 about filming a documentary. The story of a champion wave rider turned junkie could provide a simple cautionary tale on the dangers of drug use, but Ruffo’s rebound from rock bottom ended up giving the story an inspiring new direction.

Two decades of methamphetamine abuse in the Santa Cruz surfing community trashed the lives of many surfers on the local scene. Talented surfers ditched the sport as their addictions took hold, and many watching the turmoil unfold saw Anthony Ruffo as a part of the problem. A once-respected godfather of the community, Ruffo’s foray into not only using drugs, but dealing meth as well, made him a reviled character amongst the friends and family of addicts for whom he supplied drugs.

An award-winning filmmaker with a focus on producing work that makes a positive impact, Romano saw the story of Ruffo’s struggle as an opportunity to create a powerful and honest anti-methamphetamine film. When he began shooting footage on October 1, 2010, he did not anticipate the daunting twists both the story and the filmmaking would take.

“The first time that I went to Anthony’s house there were several ex-con’s and thug-like surfers/meth addicts that were packed into his home on the West side of Santa Cruz,” Romano said. “The windows were completely covered and the smell of methamphetamine smoke saturated the air. I was honestly struggling with running out of the house as fast as I could and never coming back.”

Ruffo’s ongoing drug-related legal issues made Romano’s work on the documentary a target of the local police, District Attorney investigators, and federal agents who believed the footage could contain evidence of crimes committed. The controversial nature of the documentary’s drug focus also attracted the attention of big name surfing sponsors that wanted nothing to do with the film. Rather than hand over his hard drives and risk the film never making it out of police evidence boxes or quit working on the project entirely, Romano moved out of his home to a 10’ by 12’ office space where he lived and worked on the documentary.

Drug use in the surfing community was not a secret, but the seriousness of the issue came into focus in November, 2010 with the death of surfing legend Andy Irons. News of Irons’ death devastated Ruffo, a longtime friend of the surfer, and helped push him to seek out treatment for his drug addiction.

On November 5, 2010, Anthony Ruffo boarded an airplane and flew across the country to the Clear Mind Healthy Planet treatment center in New York. His experience at the facility and journey to sobriety inspired him to bring what he learned back to Santa Cruz. Ruffo returned home in December and launched the Anthony Ruffo Project in partnership with Clear Mind Healthy Planet. Over 40 people attended the project’s first weeklong open house and the program has since spun off to speaking engagements at local schools.

Despite the positive efforts to contribute back to the community he damaged, a Santa Cruz judge still sentenced Ruffo to 730 days in county jail for the drug-related charges he faced before entering rehab. The sentencing shocked many of Ruffo’s supporters who believe he could do more good outside of custody, but the surfer accepted the judge’s decision.

The impact of the case and Romano’s coverage of Ruffo’s story has extended beyond Santa Cruz to affect the entire surfing community.

“It took a lot for Ruffo and the surf community to tell this story,” ESPN’s Jake Howard said, “but thanks to Rocky’s work on the film, everybody’s come forward and hopefully enacted some positive change both in the Santa Cruz surf community and on a more international level as well.

“In light of the passing of world champion Andy Irons and the Ruffo documentary, mainstream media like HBO and the New York Times picked up on the issue of drugs in surfing, and while the ASP won’t admit that any one particular incident had an effect on their policy making, in 2012 they a enacted a drug testing policy at all world tour events. So finally the issue of drugs, and in particular hard drugs like meth, is being talked about and people are taking it more seriously. Surfing’s no different than any other cross-section of our culture, there are always going to be users, abusers, etc, but the more we run from it the more damaging it becomes. Ruffo and Rocky have done a commendable job bringing this issue to the open, and that’s exactly what a good documentary should do.”

Learn more about the feature film, Learning To Breathe.

Previously on Holy Kaw:

Anthony Ruffo, Part 1: The surfer and the drug sentence

Anthony Ruffo, Part 2: The surfer from Santa Cruz

Anthony Ruffo, Part 3: The pro surfer’s downfall

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