‘I literally disappeared:’ Mountain biker Brett Tippie shares his struggle with addictions

NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — It’s been 10 years since international mountain bike hero Brett Tippie went on his last drinking bender, now he’s opening up about what keeps him clean and what it means to have his career back at 49 years old.

Best known for a laugh so loud it verges on a cackle and for keeping dad jokes in his back pocket, he would likely have been unrecognizable to fans when he was using drugs.

“I lost a lot of weight, I was not sleeping and I looked like someone else. I was quite embarrassed of what I’d become so I hid from everyone,” he says. “I literally disappeared from the mountain bike scene.”

Always a risk taker

Tippie’s athletic career began on snow. He cracked the top ten in World Cup snowboard racing while riding for Burton snowboards. There was no slope too steep for the crazy Canuck.

He was based in Kamloops, where he spent most of his life, though he now calls North Vancouver home. By the late 80’s, Tippie was jumping his bike off the biggest cliffs, riding 65 degree hills and “sending it” on “gnarliest” known lines on the planet.

It didn’t take long before he got the call to join the Rocky Mountain “Fro Riders,” and become a professional rider, travelling the world and making a living on his bike.

Alongside teammates Richie Schley and Wade Simmons, Tippie became an icon. There were lineups for his autographs, his face was on all the bike magazines.

He seemed to have it all, the plane tickets, the magazine photo spreads and the insane parties that came with it.

“It was a lot of rum and coke and beers and tequila shooter, just good old times, snorting a few things here and there. But then it got quite dark, it got pretty full on,” Tippie says.

But things got darker and more dangerous. Embarrassed by what he’d become Tippie made himself disappear from the mountain bike scene entirely.

Looking back he says he is certain he’s always had addictive tendencies.

“I’m a bit of a risk taker and an extreme sport enthusiast and people like that tend to go deeper into things than other people might,” he says.

The last party

It was mid-December, 2008 when Tippie took his last drink. Celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday, he went hard on the booze that night. But the next day he had a talk with his wife, who was pregnant with their first daughter.

“She threw down an ultimatum for me and some tough love. I made a choice right then and there to quit drinking, which would help me quit the drugs,” he says.

But the journey to sobriety wasn’t always a straightforward path, but now Tippie says he can comfortably hang out in any given social situation and not be tempted if there are drugs and alcohol around.

“It was really tough. I tried to quit so many times I can’t even count,” he says. “You have to really be careful of slippery places and things that will cause you to relapse.”

Now ten years sober he’s back in a big way, continuing to pioneer new, steep lines and inspire riders all over the world to get on their bikes, Tippie can once again call himself a pro-athlete.

And he says he’s choosing to be addicted to “good things” and wants to share his story to inspire others to find a way back to a healthy lifestyle that works for them.

“Believe in yourself. If you slip up, try, try again and just fight back to the path that you want to be on,” he says.

“It’s a way better life so you’ll be thankful you did.”