A few weeks ago, I read a really positive review of Steve-O: Demise & Rise on Entertainment Weekly’s website. It happened to be on MTV2 last night, so I sat down and watched it. The documentary focuses on the popular member of the Jackass crew as he plummets into a seemingly unending downward spiral of drugs, alcohol, nitrous, and the painful insanity that results from it.
Comprised of footage often shot by Steve-O himself, the program doesn’t blink as Steve-O’s life goes increasingly off-track. You see him torment a neighbor to the point that the police come and arrest Steve-O. You see him sit in a room surrounded by empty nitrous cansister. You see him argue with himself and spasm from his drug abuse. You see his stunts get more dangerous and his thoughts more suicidal. It reaches a point where the fellow Jackass performers finally do what no one else could do—they stage an intervention.
It’s the only part of the documentary that really lacks footage. The guys come in, turn off the camera, and begin the process for Steve-O to turn his life around. There is a brief frame of Johnny Knoxville in the second before the camera shuts off where you see there is more emotional pain in the eyes of Steve-O’s friend than any physical pain he ever experienced from any crazy stunt for their tv show. It’s true that the Jackass guys weren’t always the best friend they could be for Steve-O. They do say, “we were the guys that put him in the hospital” and they mean both sides of that statement. However, when necessary, they stepped up to the plate.
The famous Dr. Drew says they saved Steve-O’s life.
I guess my question is—are you able to be that friend for someone else? No, not the enabling friend who encourages bad behavior, but rather the one who will call someone out, and, more importantly, support them in the necessary transition and transformation.
I’m blessed to have a few amazing friends in my life who keep me in check. No, my lifestyle comes nowhere near Steve-O’s (I’ve never done drugs and rarely drink alcohol), but if I ever stumble into a place of laziness, self-pity, or apathy, my friends call me on it. They are definitely the friends who are there when the “cameras are on” and we’re celebrating the joys of life, but they are also there for those moments when life might be stuck in doldrums and the cameras are off. I know I’m a better person because of them.
Steve-O ends the documentary by saying he isn’t cured—that his struggle with sobriety will be a life long process—but now he knows his friends support him in this new journey.
I hope we all can support our friends as well & have them know it too.