With ‘The Drop,’ writer Thad Ziolkowski explores the connection between addiction and surfing by Ryan McDonald If ever a life called out to be transformed into a podcast, it is that of Rick “Raz” Rasmussen, a towheaded trafficker who jet-setted from jungle to red carpet before being gunned down in Harlem following a botched cocaine deal. He was 27, not far removed from a comfortable childhood in suburban Long Island. He was also a former U.S. surfing champion. Rasmussen’s appetite for danger is apparent from his first appearance in Thad Ziolkowski’s new book “The Drop: How the Most Addictive Sport Can Help Us Understand Addiction and Recovery.” It is September 1975 and Ziolkowski is on the beach in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, awaiting his heat at the East Coast Surfing Championships. He sees Rasmussen “kick-stall inches from the rusty steel groyne and pull into a meat-grinding barrel. Only the tip of the nose of his board is visible for an improbable stretch, then the wave shuts down like a piano lid.”