Bam Margera beat his demons and announced his triumphant return to skateboarding

It wasn’t long ago that Bam Margera was a household name. The Jackass series put the pro skater on the map, and his follow-up reality show, Viva La Bam, on MTV continued his stardom. But when the spotlight was gone things took a dark turn. Now Margera is back and explaining his return to skating.

Margera has signed a new deal with Element, the skating company that sponsored him for much of his career. They’re releasing a new line of throwback boards, which hearken back to a time he was one of the most popular skateboarders on the planet.

The world hasn’t see Bam for some time, by design. He explained to People that years of partying and drinking caused his life to become stuck in a downward spiral.

“I took a five year hiatus from skating because I had bone spurs, so instead I was making money by doing nightclub appearances, which basically was shooting photos and taking shots with the locals,” the pro skateboarder and former star of Jackass tells PEOPLE. “So I was s–tbag wasted every night, and eventually was like, ‘This has to stop.’ Once I woke up in my own puke and piss, I knew I had to cut it off.”

Bam stepped on a scale, looked in the mirror, and hated what he’d become. So he left America, took a tour around Europe to re-center himself and finally settled in a log cabin in Estonia where he would live with his two dogs, running and working out to get himself back in shape.

It worked. Now he’s making his triumphant return. Initially Margera wasn’t able to do the tricks that made him famous. He had to re-learn everything, and that sparked something inside him. Now living in Barcelona and expecting his first child with his wife, Margera touched on what a change of scenery has done for him on Vice’s EPICLY LATER’D.

These stories often have a bad ending, but Margera has put everything back together and it’s awesome to see.