It is ok.Go ahead and call me a DI**HEAD

Ricardo Cabasa your request in Spanish.

:lol:

Rob

 

Very interesting read here.I have driven my Bike from a bar a couple of times. The 2 guys I was with came with their car.On the way home we lined up at the lights and I was feeling good...I revved the Bike and wanted to burn rubber..yeah right..ended up that I squealed the tire and front end lifted up to much and I almost lost the Bike right there..stupid me.
But being sober on a Bike here is a challenge I'll tell you with all the idiots out there driving.In 1 day I have almost been rear ended twice by vehicles while I was stopped at a set of lights.Kind of obvious when they lock there brakes and slide to a stop behind me,had it in 1st in case I needed to move out fast.I will stick to riding mostly on Highways and stay away from City streets,especially Friday Nights 8O

 

Another great thread.

My roommate and I share my bike. He's not a not a big drinker, but I'm going to reiterate to him that one beer = no riding.

Bean, I'm glad things are going well for you. Sometimes the hardest lessons are learned first hand.

 

LIFE IS SHORT.enjoy it.

 

I've been clean and sober for 13 years now, before that I had 7 dui's, and no one but myself was ever hurt. God watched out for me thats for sure. When I ride I get a high, its being on the bike on the road, a freedom only the few know. So I enjoy it sober, and I think I enjoy it more. Everybody makes mistakes, its learning from them that separate the men from the boys.

 

I am alive.been over a year since I posted.I recently got laid off.Which means more time to tinker with bikes.I have no xj as of now but can ride my other toys.Hope everyone is good.John.SilverSeca thanks for stopping by last year.Wish I could have ridden then but no dl.

 

p.s January will be 2 years since I have drank any booze.

 

Congrats on your upcoming Birthday....don't let temptation screw you over the holiday season.

I read through the thread again.....you know how it works....the reminders are the stuff that keeps us coming back.....

Aug 29 was 21 years....damn I'm getting old<LOL>!!!

j

 

thanks jeff nice avatar.

 

Hey guys,

glad to hear im not the only one around here with a bit of a problem. The 21 will be 2 months for me. I grew up in a family that went to A.A every week and ive been to quite a few open house meetings my self. I started drinking way to young and decided to quit just in time. I always get much more drunk then I intend to and have done some stupid things (like piss in my fridge as an example ). If you ever need a good read about alcohol, drugs, or just addiction in general, check out "The Heroin Diaries" by Nikki Sixx. And for the people who need to figure out how to "replace" their addiction, "This is Gonna Hurt" also by Sixx is one of the best books i have ever read in my life.

And Jeff, Im pretty sure my dad`s birthday is around the same day as yours and the exact same amount of time, just as long as ive been alive.

Cheers guys

 

first Ive seen of this thread. Glad I did though I havent had a beer or nothin since 12/02/2006. If I told the story you may laugh your butt off but I still have to shake it off over what almost happened. But since there is so much open honesty I wasnt just an alcoholic, and a bad one I had a harder addiction. Coming up on 5 years clean now and yes I ride different now.

Also havent been chased by the cops naked through the hospital to be recaptured on north 9th ave. either so I got that goin for me too.

 

Nov. 5th made 4yrs clean & sober for me. I quit drinking 5 months after I turned 21. I have a family of alcoholics and witnessed first hand what it does to a family. In those few months of legal drinking, I began to see a habit forming.

I woke up, in a stranger's minivan, to an officer ordering me to place my hands behind my back! Evidently, I found comfort in the back seat of the van and decided to bed down. From my vague recollection of the night, I guess I thought my buddy dropped me off at this house where I was supposed to know who lived there. I recall banging on all the the doors and trying to let myself in. Thankfully they were all locked. I had also lost a brand new cell phone($300) that night. The owners of the house decided not to press charges since nothing was destroyed. Luckily it was a college town and the officers didn't want to bother with me so they dropped me off at the local diner for breakfast. After eating I walked to Mcdonald's and slept in a booth for a couple hours. Some nice soul there graciously left an OJ on the table for when I woke. Later, I learned how the night really played out: I blacked out at the bar, ordered 20 shots and only had $7 left in my pocket, stumbled into the kitchen, got myself forcefully removed from the bar, released my anger on the front door, walked down the road, lost the phone somewhere, attempted to start a fight with an entire frat house, and finally came to at the house where I crashed. To make things worse, it was a nursing home that cared for the mentally challenged!

Another time, I made the mistake of blacking out at a party where I only new 2 people. I came to out in the driveway and realized I had gotten jumped. Found the girl I went with and demanded a ride home. Had a black eye for 2 weeks.

Finally, while drinking with a couple bad asses we decided to return to the house where I was jumped 2 weeks earlier looking for some answers. When they seen it was me with the 2 friends, HELL then in sued. As the kid who lived there drew a long riffle on me, I seen his "old head" father jump out his van with a 12 gauge! The kid then started firing rounds at my buddy's feet. Staring down his barrel, while retreating to the car, I quickly tried to reason with him. In my fit of reasoning, the kid butt stroked me in the face with the stock of his riffle. My friends picked me up and we left. Turns out they called the cops to cover their asses incase I tried to cause them any trouble. Few weeks later, I spent the night in jail over it all cause the Newbie cop was trying to build his case record. Turns out, the old head was good friends with my mother in school. He came to court as my witness and the cop dropped it all. That Dumby! The butt stroke gave me a black eye for over a year...

This post got out of hand, sorry! Thats when I sobered up... Never had any DUIs cause the multiple underage drinking violations I got took my license for a total of 5yrs 3mths. I learned the hard way too...

Bobbybonez, you pissed in the fridge! thats hilarious. I say this because I once pissed in the oven in high school. Terrible thing is, it was on and open for heat in the old house I lived in. Smelt for days.

Make good decision...live longer!

 

I'll chime in, as this isn't a thread anyone will complain about us resurrecting, this topic will always be relevant. I'm 40 years old(still can't get used to saying that) and have ridden bikes on and off on the road since I was 11(no cops where I lived, used to ride my Honda ST90 to all my friends' houses)

I also drove for a living for 10 years, in my private cars. I have a mess of tickets in that time, up to 30 MPH over the limit. But no DUI's. Not that I've never ever drank and drove, I have, maybe not over the limit, but you never can be sure. I grew up in a culture of "one for the road" and in fact didn't even know drinking and driving were illegal until my late teens.

My dad was an alcoholic and always drove with a beer between his legs. On family road trips it was a quart of beer. Now he used to drive truck and was one of the best drivers I ever knew, and also never got a DUI(but did get one open container) but he sure as hell wasn't setting a good example.

Luckily I don't have a problem with alcohol, but you don't have to be a drunk to kill yourself on a motorcycle. Really, I'm so much better at driving than I will ever be on a motorcycle(even though I can pull a wheelie on my shaftie just from sheer practice, I figure I've driven over half a million miles, easy. I'll never approach that on my bike, even though I'm a year round daily rider. I'm aware of this, and don't want to do anything to lower my already dubious riding skills. But talk is cheap and even knowing all that I have done dumb things.

The absolute worst thing I've done on a motorcycle is ride it to a private party at a club here in Portland. Never mind what was going on there, but suffice it to say alcohol was not the only thing people were consuming. If I can give one word of warning: You CAN'T TELL if you are able to ride your bike when you standing on the street next to it. Things will be happening much faster once on the bike than they are when you are perfectly still saying to yourself "I'm fine, I stopped drinking two hours ago" (which is what I was telling myself)

You won't know until you are dead, or in the hospital, or jail, or if you are very lucky, as I was, when you notice that as you're rounding the very gradual bend in the freeway going onto the Fremont Bridge that you are having trouble keeping it in the lane. Jesus! On a bridge hundreds of feet in the air at 3 in the morning at freeway speeds is not the time to be wondering "am I ok to be riding?"

I guess everybody gets one mistake, or a couple if you're lucky, but why chance it? Any new riders on here, learn from the dumb asses that came before, really I'm no prude, but 0% should be the legal limit on bikes. And the cagers really are trying to kill you, take it from me, I got run over in a crosswalk on Thanksgiving night by a kid that was sober, so you need to be clear headed to spot the idiots, if for no other reason.

 

A few years ago ... well quite a few actually ... a mate and I had a big long session in Proserpine in Northern Queensland ... we then foolishly decided to ride our dirt bikes out to an abandonded resort about 50 miles to the coast. It was late, the roads were bad gravel and had big stones on them.

The front wheel of his XL500 hit a stone on a bend and he lost it, hitting the road face down. With an open face helmet he broke his jaw and nose, lost five teeth and nearly an eye. He was unconcious and I had no idea about first aid. We were on a rarely used private gravel road in the middle of the night.

With no prospect of passing traffic to help I bundled him onto the back of my TT500 and strapped his hands in front of my waist to stop him falling off. I half pillioned half dragged him to the hospital, over 30 miles away and he very nearly died from loss of blood. He spent three weeks in hospital and his bike was a write off. I had to collect the wreck the next day. He still has the scars, big ones.

Could have been me.

 

Damn. This thread is an eye opening read. I have never and will never drink and drive, let alone ride.

As others have said, even one beer will affect your judgement in some way, and that's not worth the added risk. You can still have plenty of fun and have a perfectly awesome social life if you don't drink. If you can't, you just need different friends. The cold but honest truth.

Thanks for all the personal stories, it may not be easy to share, but they have the power to change peoplesviews on drinking and riding.

 

Wow

 

I am still alive.Haven't drank in over 3 years.You guys be safe and have a merry xmas and a great new year.

 

Good to see you are still with us bean, Merry Xmas and a Prosperous New year to you.
That goes out to all D***heads and to those who have yet to become D***heads. Yeh, it'll happen!

 

I would like to say... Thanks for sharing it takes a real big person to admit the wrongs they have done. Now I am not sitting on high horse. I have 2 alcohol related offenses Thank god they got dropped from DUI's and here in cali DUI's are the mark of death... for everything. Am I ashamed? yes. Do I still have a a beer or 3 and drive? yes but I make sure I have had time to "sober" and obey the laws. Much after 3 in 2 hours I get a dd or cab. 15k cumulative to the state, lawyer and whatever is not worth it. I don't care if the cab is 100 I will pay. 15k vs 100 from downtown? hmmm. 15k = 150 rides from down town. and I go to down town like 10 times a year... Math makes sense to me.

CA is a zero tolerance state. My first offense I blew a .06 & .05 legal limit is .08 so I thought off I go. nope jail and 16 hours of no sleep I go.

Second was just as bad but it was a .03 & .04 after 1.5 hours and 2 beers. WTF it was then I decided the above. and cab rides are better.

Motorcycle and booze? never. I would rather walk then look like a jack ass and dump the bike trying to drunk back out.

I have been riding street since 02 not alot of time but 10 years and never drink and ride? pretty good record... on the other hand since 96 driving and I have 2 alcohol related offenses?... Not so much.

I appreciate as other stated that they are glad your alive and hope this is a lesson to the future.

-tas

 

Great to hear bean!! Keep it up!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you as well!

 

For you to share personal stuff is a big deal. I know I have had some crazy times in my life that I regret. Somehow God was keeping me safe through it or letting suffer just bad enough to call on Him for some kind of help.

 

Congrats bro!

 

thanks Silverseca.I am riding again.No xj thou.

 

zoom zoom,dam almost a year since I last looked at this thread.

 

Hey,
I am not here to preach, so I won't,
That being said there was a study done awhile back that says your chance of having an accident after drinking on a mc goes up 700 %
Scientifically speaking the first thing to go is your ability to reason.
I am no self righteous a hole , but my oldest brother and my mother
were killed by drunk drivers (not mc related)
Be safe be smart!!
Joe

 

I went thru a rough patch about 4 years ago
in fact I have 4 yrs of my life I barely remember
I know for a fact I drank and drove home.. that being a bar
on about 3 occasions when I should not have been behind
the wheel
never on 2, but not that that matters
when I got my MC license I realized how much more alert
you need to be on 2 wheels
I still sometimes work in a bar, and when I do
I only ever have a weak ass drink like a low cal beer
and no more than one ever
even then I feel sometimes it is too much
I am still working on my XJ and still only have my Scooter
but I know that on a bigger bike, it is all the faster and all the
more dangerous

As a biker we need to be more aware of everyone and everything
around us
Drinking and then Riding is just insane

think before you drive, and do it with a clear head
you only get one go around.. enjoy it

 

Interesting to note how many of us have had "youthful indiscretions", and how many of us took more than one time to learn the lesson (myself included). Also interesting to note the amount of respect and understanding where one other forums it'd be a flame-fest by post 3 (maybe it does at some point, only read page one & six so far).

Personally I've never ridden a bike drunk although I nearly did once, but I was that wasted I fell in a huge puddle & we decided it'd be safer to take my nan's car for a ride instead... Well no more than half a mile down the road we ended up lying on the passenger door in a hedge, fortunately the only injuries were to me & that was only burns on my hands from the airbag. I don't drink at all these days, the stuff actually makes me feel sick now!

I'd agree that it's insane to reduce your abilities in any way, on a bike, as you need to be at your best all the time to simply survive on todays roads to the point that I will try to avoid riding if I even have a bad cold or been taking any medication that might slow me down.

 

OK... per your request... you sir, are a dickhead.

now, please don't drink + ride/drive again!

 

If you take a minute to read the thread, you'll note he has learned the lesson & hasn't drank for over 4 years now, nearly 5...

 

Good on ya for tackling the beast and getting your drinking under control. I cannot throw stones as I have a DUI crash in my past, and despite that I continued to drive drunk well into my late 30's until I finally decided to stop. I still drink, but if I am out my wife and I will play rock paper scissors to determine who stays sober. I am amazed sometimes how I made it as long as I did without getting into more trouble than I did, or getting hurt or hurting someone else.

 

I have a friend who back in 2009 wrecked a gsxr 1000 at over 185mph. His back tire was blad and blew. He was drunk and had copious ammounts of cocaine in his system. His leg landed longwise on a speed limit sign sending his shin through his calf. His buddy who was riding with him stopped and dragged him out of the road. He passed out when he tried standing on the "leg". Broke both rists, ribs, fingets, and road rash on 65% of his body. The doctors had to revive him numerous times and gave him so much blood that his tox screen came back clean. After 2 weeks in a medically induced coma he was awake.

Lost his leg. No longet rides.

Life is to fragile to be stupid. Im glad the o.p. learned from his mistakes. I have pics of the bike before and aftet somewhere i can probably track down. Was a beautiful bike.

 

I think one of the reasons people here don't flame about it (except in jest) is that while everyone here is pretty passionate about NOT D&D, most of us are a bit older and know that people have to learn that lesson themselves (either by their own direct experience or like in Ryan's case knowing someone who made that mistake). Heck, anyone with kids knows they will touch the hot stove when told not to.

My hope, and I'm sure it's the same for most everyone there, is that some people can learn the lesson vicariously rather then having to put themselves and loved ones through their own mistake.

 

Social changes as well,when I was younger it wasn't unusual for distances to be measured by how many cans away a destination was.A six pack was around an hour.
I look back and wonder how any of us survived.
This generation seems to regard DD as a sin [rightly so] but that is mostly about social conditioning changing their perceptions.18 year olds in the past saw drinking as a macho test and that probably killed a lot of them.Now they still see it as macho but if you get caught the price is very high.None of them believe they will have an accident because they are 18.

 

Before my friends wreck.




After



Was a beautiful bike.

 

We've all done some stupid things or we aren't alive. The key is to learn from them.

I came home one evening after being out with my wife and realized that my oldest son (about 10 at the time) and baby sitter recognized that I was smashed. That was a terrible feeling. Gave my wallet to my wife and had her take the baby sitter home. Got rid of every bit of the alcohol in the house and never had another drink. That was about 32 years ago and I've never regretted it for a moment. Interestingly, the first party I went to after quitting was a real eye opener--people do and say weird things when they drink and it's even stranger if you are one of the only ones not drinking.

Glad you were lucky enough to "live and learn."

 

I don't drink and drive or drink and ride because I've had cars and bikes scare the living s%$t out of me stone sober. I have been in a few accidents; I totalled one car and been a passenger in another car as my ex totaled it. I was lucky to walk away from both accidents with only minor injuries (whiplash) and didn't drive for months after either because of how an accident can scare the crap into you.

When my ex totaled my Blazer I ended up getting a bike a few months later, and I was extremely scared to ride in traffic. I'd seen what an auto accident looked like, and imagining myself doing that on a bike meant that it took me months to get up to riding at 45mph. I didn't get on the highway for at least 5-6 months, and even then I stayed in the right lane and only did 65 - for VERY short distances.

My Virago 1100 has scared the crap out of me too. I'm used to the power and torque curve of the Maxim 650, and when I got on the Virago one day and opened the throttle a bit too quick making a right from a stop, I nearly ended up backwards. After that incident, I rode straight home and parked the bike because I gave myself whiplash just from the rear wheel drifting around behind me.

All of this happened to me while sober, and if I had been drunk I can only imagine what the consequences would have been, and who I would have injured in addition to myself. The moral of the story for me is quite simple: NEVER drink and operate ANY motor vehicle.

 

I definitely think that when you drink it's one of those things where you can eventually out grow it. Kudos to everyone who decides to quit and can stay with it. Contrary to what everyone else says, I do think that it's quite addictive to drink. Watch yourself, if you really want to see how dangerous it can get. Keep a breathalyzer for your bike...

 

Don't be the one who's a di**head this time a year (that goes for anytime of year). But if you drink don't drive or ride. Everyone be safe!!!!