Hey Artie, let’s start things off with a little introduction before we get into the more serious stuff, ok?

Hello, let’s do it. My name’s Arthur Bultynck. I’m 30 years old and I’ve been skating for 20 years. I live in Ghent, Belgium, and I’ve got a dog (laughs). I work in a low threshold structure for people who suffer from poverty, homelessness or drug addiction. And well, obviously, I skate a lot. 

You were born and raised in Ghent, right? It’s a beautiful city, but, at least as far as I know, it’s not exactly the capital of Belgian skateboarding. How did skating come into your life?

I started skating in 2004. Around that time, it was getting quite popular in my city. We had three skate shops here – actually, we’ve still got three shops today, but it’s not the same ones. Anyways, there was this friend of mine who had already had a board back then, and it was him who got me interested in this skateboarding thing. So, during summer vacation, I convinced my dad to take me to a skatepark. However, I had no idea how dangerous it would actually be… I tried to transfer over a spine and immediately broke my arm. I needed to wear a cast up to my shoulder for the rest of my summer vacation (laughs). But as weird as it sounds, that’s what got me into skating. The moment I broke my arm, I knew that skating was everything I ever wanted to do. I guess, I’d just never had such an adrenaline rush before and got hooked. So, two or three weeks after I had broken my arm, I was already back trying to learn how to skate – with my cast on (laughs).

Haha, sounds like you were made to get on Zero. Could you tell us a bit about how this kid from Ghent who got hooked on skating by breaking his arm ended up on one of the most legendary board brands ever? 

To be honest, I never thought I’d be where I’m at right now. I used to get whatever kind of boards from First Aid skate shop – and I’m still thankful for that till this day. But once they had to close down, I just started buying the boards I was really into… and that happened to be Zero boards. “Cold War” (2013) had just come out, and I must have watched it about a thousand times. The soundtrack, the skating, the roughness, the whole aesthetic, … it all just resonated so much with me – and it still does! I filmed a couple of parts with my friends from around here. By the way, that’s one of the best things about the scene in Ghent: People here have always been totally down to do stuff, to hit the streets and to work on videos. I was only skating Zero boards throughout all my parts and eventually got on distribution flow. During one winter, I filmed an all night part and Zero actually reposted it. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep for like two days, and ever since, I kept sending them footage. I guess it just all went on from there. Jamie had always been super nice and responsive, but when Vans’ Betty (2021) came out, he actually invited me to come out to the States and join the team on a Texas tour. Two weeks later, I was on a plane to Los Angeles – the first time I ever flew somewhere on my own. 

Wow! How’d the trip go?

At the time, I was still drinking and since I was so nervous on that flight, I just had one beer after another. When I arrived at the Zero warehouse in Encinitas, I told Jamie and he was just so cool about it. He made me feel welcome, took me out for lunch, and the day after, I found myself in the van with the team. Vinny (Dalfio) – he’s the filmer and also a super sick skater – and I really connected right away. He’s got a dog who’s with him all the time, and so do I. Anyways, on the first day of the trip, I tried this switch bigspin down a four block – kind of a mellow one, though. However, it still took me like 30 or 40 minutes to roll away from my trick. So, once I’m done, we pack up, walk around the corner and there’s Dane (Burman) grinding an 18 stair rail by himself, several times in a row. And I was just like: “What the fuck? Why am I even here?” That’s when I noticed that there’s levels to skating (laughs). I think the Texas trip went really well for me, though. Everybody was super welcoming, and I got some stuff done that I’m still hyped on, like the impossible over the gap into the bank. I broke my rips on that one, but was still so full of adrenaline that I managed to try a couple more and eventually rolled away. Everyone was so stoked, and so was I, even though skating-wise I couldn’t do much anymore for the rest of the trip. Harry (Billiet) came out to California after the trip was over, and when he saw me he was like: “Dude, you look like you’ve lived two years in two weeks” (laughs). 

But your drinking was still kind of in check at that point, wasn’t it?

Well, at the time, I would have definitely said so. I mean, I still got stuff done. But also, when you drink heavily, you kinda stop noticing that people around you actually don’t. Them guys noticed of course, but I was just playing it off like: “Oh, I’m European, that’s just how we do it”. But anyways, the first trip was still alright. I returned to Belgium and kept filming with Harry and sending footage over to Jamie. Eight months later, I went back to the States for another month, and that’s when I really screwed it up because of my drinking. Jamie let me take the Zero van and I even slept in it (laughs). I was honestly just so stoked cause the van’s got so much history. But throughout the full month, I was drinking way too much. I was feeling like shit and didn’t get shit done. I ended up taking the guys to whatever kind of spots just to get at least something… and most of the time, I would still be battling for three hours. I felt like I was wasting their time, and if something didn’t work at all, I’d just have mental breakdowns at the spot. It wasn’t the pressure or anything, though. It was just the fact that I was easily drinking twelve to sixteen beers a day. That’s why I wasn’t able to do shit, but I didn’t realise it at the time, of course. At the end of the trip, the team was kinda over me, I think – for a reason! I was just a drunk with no motivation to actually skate. So, when Jamie drove me to the airport, he just told me, without any judgement or accusation in his voice: “Honestly, I think alcohol’s more important to you than skating”. That’s what he told me an hour before I got on my eleven hour flight and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I had gotten the chance to live my dream and I just fucked it up. At the same time, some part of me felt so much anger towards Jamie. But I came to realise that this part wasn’t me. This part was the addiction talking. I guess, that was the reality check I needed so badly. But of course, first thing I did back in Belgium was to drink myself into a pit of sadness. I tried to drink it all away, for three months straight. But then, one day as I was lying in bed with a beer, out of nowhere, I came to my senses. What the fuck was I doing? You’re basically throwing away your biggest dream to do what? To lie in bed, full of sadness, and to drink myself to sleep every day? How can this alcohol thing be more important than everything I’ve ever dreamt of? How is it even possible to fuck up so badly? So, I just stopped. Cold turkey.

Wow…

The first two weeks were super hard. I had been suffering from anxiety for most of my life at this point, but always numbed myself with alcohol. So when I went cold turkey, anxiety just kicked in really, really badly. So, I just had to stay inside. I was so bad. I had panic attacks all the time and I was sweating out so much shit. My body was just like: “Where’s the fucking alcohol, bro? Where’s this thing that’s been part of me for so long?” But I knew, I just had to get through it. I texted Jamie and just wanted to let him know that I was trying to quit drinking… and he texted me back. He told me that I could reach out to him whenever I needed to talk. He told me that he’d have my back, he sent me some books to read and helped me out with going to meetings. Obviously, I had to get off the alcohol myself, but it’s been such a huge motivation to have someone like Jamie, someone who I’ve been looking up to my whole life, to just be there. I really owe him a lot. And as for the skating, he also kept supporting me through all this. There would have been a thousand other skaters who are probably better than me and who don’t have an alcohol problem, but Jamie gave me a second chance over at Zero… and that comes to show what kind of person he his. I’m very grateful, and by now, I’ve been sober for a little over two years.

Congratulations! From cold turkey to two years of sobriety. Would you be down to share a little bit more about that journey?

Thank you, first of all! And yes, of course, I’m down… Once I had passed the two weeks mark, I started to feel better again. My anxiety attacks got less and less, and I came to realise that the alcohol wasn’t numbing my anxiety; it was actually reinforcing it. By now, it’s been one and a half years since I had my last panic attack. Anyways, as soon as I started feeling better again, I also started skating again, and when I was skating, it really wasn’t hard not to drink. I feel like I channelled my addiction into skateboarding. Ever since I got sober, I’ve been skating every single day. I try to learn something new every single day. I obsess over tricks. I will spend a week trying to learn a trick and will not really rest until I roll away from one. But I don’t wanna make it sound all that easy cause it fucking wasn’t. Man, it still isn’t! The first couple of months went really well, but after about half a year, things got a little bit harder again. I started thinking about alcohol more often again. I missed it, especially when I went on trips with my friends or when I was around people that I didn’t really know so well. Plus, there’s alcohol everywhere, and I mean not just in skating. It can be hard to engage in certain social activities when you’re sober. Friends go out, have fun and make some nice memories while I go home, drink some tea and go to bed. I had to learn to accept that there’s certain things I just cannot do anymore. I had to learn to feel good about it. But by now, I feel like I do. It feels good to be up early and ready to skate while everyone else is still asleep. I just turned thirty and I’ve never felt better. When I was drinking, I could do my type of skating for two hours maybe, and then I would need two days of rest, you know?! Now, I can skate for four or five hours non stop, go to bed, wake up and do the same thing again. I’ve never been more consistent and I’ve never learned as many new tricks as I do now. Sobriety has become a strength, and I’m proud of myself that I chose the thing I love the most over some fucking substance. People sometimes ask me if I couldn’t just have a beer or two here and there, but I know that if I ever consciously chose to have a drink again, you probably wouldn’t see me around for the next four years or so (laughs). I think there’s just no in-between for me. Oh, as a little side story: for my thirtieth birthday I accidentally drank some wine, though (laughs). We had the stupid idea to buy some 0.0% wine for the occasion, and shortly after I had started to drink a glass, I realised that something wasn’t quite right. The music sounded a bit too good all of a sudden. So, I looked at the bottle and realised that I had taken the fucking wrong one. Something in my mind directly went like: “Oh, you’ve already had two or three sips, so you could also just drink the whole bottle. It’s your birthday after all”. That was addiction speaking again. But I didn’t listen. I guess, it helped to know that I drank two or three sips by accident and not as a conscious decision. What I wanna say is that sobriety’s a slippery slope. It’s so easy to fall off and so difficult to keep it up sometimes. It takes a lot of work, constant work on yourself. But I don’t wanna sound like a preacher. This is just my story and I don’t hold any judgement to anyone who drinks – no matter if you can handle it or not. I’ve been there. I was someone who couldn’t handle it, and I was fucking up everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I used alcohol to numb things that I rather should have worked on. I used alcohol to find some sense of happiness without actually being happy. But that doesn’t have to be everyone’s story. The last thing I wanna do is to tell someone to stop drinking just because I did. All I wanna do by sharing all of this is to make a point that if you feel like you have a problem, you should look into it instead of trying to run away from it, no matter if it’s with skating, drinking, eating a crazy lot of sugar or whatever. I’m happier now than I ever was. Of course, there’s days when I’m not happy, but even on such days, I’m content at least with where I am – and that’s worth way more than a couple of hours of some false drunken happiness.

Thank you! Massive respect for talking so openly about everything you’ve gone through. Unless you wanna add something now, I’d like to talk a bit about the job of yours that, I would assume, is pretty much related to the subject. I mean you’re working – among others – with people who are suffering from addictions…

Yes, I do. Actually, the job’s not really a job, though. I’ve been doing voluntary work for the last three months now; twice a week so far, and soon three times a week. When I was younger, I used to work at the harbour, but I never really felt good about my job. It’s completely different with the voluntary work I am doing now. I like it so much that sometimes I even go there just like that, without it being planned or even necessary. I think that this place would have really helped me when I was still drinking, and I think that I have gotten to a point in my sobriety where I can be of some sort of help to others. When someone’s suffering from addiction or mental problems, I obviously can’t fully understand what the person’s going through, but at least, I know from my own personal experience how certain stuff feels like and how hard it can be sometimes. I wanna be there for people who don’t really have anyone – even if it’s just to talk about the weather or whatever. We take time there, we talk, we cook together, there’s coffee for 50 cents, we organise activities, and every Tuesday, we have a meeting with everybody and decide what we’re gonna do next week. We’re building a feeling of community there and provide a safe space for the people who need it most. Of course, it’s not all butterflies, though, and sometimes you’re confronted with some gnarly as stories you’ll take home with you, but that’s just what it is. My voluntary work is helping me to gain perspective on life, I feel, and it also gives me a sense of having other capacities than just skating. It feels like a place where I belong outside of skating. I can switch off a bit and focus on other aspects of life. At the same time, it gets me extra hyped for skating somehow. I’m happy to go to work, but when I leave work, I go straight back into my skateboarding bubble and I wanna skate even harder. I could really see myself doing what I’m doing now as a full time job at some point. But first, I gotta gain some more experience, and I mean, I’m thirty now and feel better than ever before. So I guess, I still wanna keep focussing on skateboarding for a little longer (laughs).

Fair enough, especially now that you’re getting your first official Zero part. Could you tell us how the part came about?

Once we were done with Betty, Harry and I just kept filming and I kept sending the footage to Jamie. Five months later, I went on that Texas trip. I mean, I broke my ribs there but still got some decent clips. So, at the end of the trip, I just told Jamie that I would love to work on a Zero part. Jamie seemed hyped, and basically from that moment on, I’ve saved up all the footage that I felt might be good enough for a Zero part. Obviously, soon after, things were put on hold for quite a while, but as soon as I got sober, I really started working on the part again. During the first year of sobriety, it was kinda hard to get clips, though. But this last year’s been great. I got to go on so many trips and really got stuff done. In total, I think I’ve got ten minutes of footage, but don’t expect any rails, like the ones that Dane and the rest of the guys skate (laughs). It took a long time to finish this one up, but this part means a lot to me! I am so grateful that Jamie gave me a second chance, and I’m just so stoked to get a Zero part. I’m just so grateful to get a chance to put out a part for them! And honestly, it doesn’t even feel real yet. Guess it will though when the part finally comes out (laughs). 

I can’t wait to see it! Do you have any plans for what you will do once it’s finally out?

The thing I would like to do most once the part is out is to go back to the States – as my sober self. I haven’t been back yet. Two years of sobriety feels kinda long, but when we’re talking about addiction, it really isn’t that long. I still struggle, I still think about alcohol sometimes, but I do feel stable now. I feel confident with my sobriety, with my skating, and with who I am. I guess, I’m ready to go back to the States, to meet up with everyone again and to be my actual, true self. Also, I’m on Homeboy now. Wanja hooked it up during a trip to Barcelona last winter, and I already got to go on some trips with him, Daniel (Ledermann) and that whole crew. I’m really down with  them all, and I feel like they’ve got something really good going on. Everyone’s just hungry to get clips and make the best out of their skating. So, I definitely wanna do some more stuff with those guys!

Looking forward to seeing you and Dani jump down some stuff together, and nothing but the best for everything that’s coming up! We’ve touched on some heavy stuff in this interview, and I can’t thank you enough for opening up and sharing so much. It’s certainly been anything but an easy ride, but it sounds like you’re in a really good place now. Mad respect, Artie! Do you have any shoutouts to wrap this one up?

Big thanks to Jamie Thomas, Harry Billiet, Vinny Dalfio, Arthur Le Duc, everyone over at Zero, Mohamed Saouti, Curb Skateshop, Aldo Niemijer, Allstyle Distribution, Dominique De Vreese, Vans Europe, Wanja Bach, Daniel Ledermann, Homeboy, Steve Forstner, Anders Tellen, 24/7 Distribution, Oj Wheels, Bronson Bearings, Independent Trucks, you guys over here, my mom & dad, Leonie, Eva, Joni, Ramsy, Avoid Archives and all the homies!