I first became aware of Jay Adams in the early ’70s through still photos published of him surfing and skateboarding. He excelled in both sports and was an innovator to the extent that surfers and skaters around the world cloned his style.

I met Jay at Swami’s in the late ‘70s where we shared small waves together and talked of the North Shore, where he was planning to move later that year. Next thing I heard was that Jay was in prison on a manslaughter charge, stemming from a drunken and angry outburst in Hollywood. For many years after that, when I heard Jay’s name it was either associated with skateboarding, surfing the North Shore or getting in trouble with the law.

In 2005, I met Jay Adams again in La Jolla, through our mutual friend, skate legend Christian Hosoi. Adams had settled down quite a bit by then and was speaking enthusiastically about his recent conversion to Christianity and his desire to stay away from drugs and alcohol, the twin demons that had led him into all his troubles. Jay returned to Hawaii and called from time to time, just to talk about surf and sobriety and the married life he was enjoying.

Later that year we began shooting the documentary “D.O.P.E.” about the rise, fall and redemption of three skateboarders. Jay, who was celebrating several months of sobriety, asked to be the fourth participant in the film, something I gladly agreed to. Then I got the call I hoped would never come — Jay had been arrested for parole violation. Turns out his past had come to haunt him. Way back in 2002, he had been caught on tape telling a cop where to score hard drugs. No money had been exchanged and it was the type of infraction that would usually lead to a slap on the wrist. Some friends and I attended Jay’s trial, where the judge heard the case, considered his violent past and sent him back to prison for two years.

Jay called me regularly from prison and last month I got a call from him that he was being released and sent to a drug treatment facility in Orange County. I drove to LAX with some friends and we watched him walk down the hall, through the revolving door and into our custody.

At this writing, Jay Adams is nearly a free man again. He will serve nine months in the treatment facility and then face parole for several years. I meet with him about once a month and each time I do he seems healthier and clearer of mind. While his focus continues to be on riding waves and skateboarding, I sense no intent on his part to get high or deal drugs. The main goal in his life is to see others set free from an addiction that in his words had him, “Sharing needles with people who were HIV positive, using gutter water and toilet water to shoot up. I didn’t care if I lived or died.”

Jay Adams now realizes that he has many reasons to live, one of them being his wife, Alisha, and the birth of their daughter, Venice (named for his hometown.) He will surf and skate again, not with the recklessness of a 20-something jacked on speed, but with style, grace and an appreciation for each wave, be they made of concrete or water. He knows that sedation doesn’t make anyone wild, but tames them, and that tamed things often end up in cages.