Hello All

Iv been sober 18 yrs this month and its been the best years of my life. Could I of lived to be here if i were a drinker? Maybe! However if i drank I would of been able to afford the Harley I have today. May a friend are riding the highway in heaven because of the mighty drink. I also rode drunk in my younger years and still remember the many stupid things i did. Like riding down 4th st in Lubbock Texas in my underwear with a friend. The friend dropped his bike and had road rash pretty bad. Today it's simple and easy and much more fun. Issues that come up are easier to deal with or just not as important as when I was drinking. Most times its not the riders fault when a accident happens, however if you had been drinking before hand then your reflexes aren't at there best and the chances are stacked against you. God forbid if you have a passenger! Bad enough rider's have to deal with bad auto drivers, putting alcohol into the mix is just an accident waiting to happen. I,m all for the big party and having fun but waiting till the ride is over is the time to enjoy. Then you can reminisce all you want and drink till you drop and your assured your chances to wake up the next day if your not riding or driving are very high. Don't be the next story of a rider going down because of the drunken episode of driving to fast on deadmans curve.Every town has a deadmans curve or rollercoaster street with a story of someone dying because they were drinking and driving. Don't let it be YOU they talk about next.

Jim

October is 14 years no drinking for me...No way would i have been able to go the long distance riding if i were still drinking....It is amazing how much we can know love the simple things. Only we know how much more feelings we have. We have been on both sides...and we have a choice.. good luck to all...and ride safe "gadget" palm beach county florida

Just wanted to say, I've known Bill for about 20 years only from the Al-Anon side, I wish you all well be safe be happy. Congrats each and every day.

Ride Safe.

yeah i agree,i drank and drugged full on and flat out for twenty seven years,suffered numerous unexplainable injuries, pain, humiliation and degradation.heres a poem i thought up a couple of months ago./I used to set myself on fire, always wanting to get higher,party tricks would make you sick,diamond days or diamond dogs ,DESPERATION BLUES,no good news ,down down down,i have a disease of more that cannot be satisfied, a wild spirit unpacified,stratified and shattered,fish crumbed or battered?it does not matter when eating from a bin,the shame ,the guilt,the newspaper quilt, going full throttle down the neck of a bottle,or breaking a leg while drinking a keg,some may think is extreme.this journey of life,torture trouble and strife,powerless, spat into the world,DESPERATION, isolation, i had to drink again,the jumping off point,maybe smoke a joint, paranoia,isolation and fear, that hot cold sweat,i do not fret because my pants are wet, and i woke up on the kitchen floor,whose kitchen floor? whats behind that door? WHAT DID I DO LAST NIGHT !!!???well that was then and this is now,over 8 years sober and clean and happy.and back on a bike.all those years i was living THE GOOD LIFE (ha ha ha )well i thought i was anyway, at the time,talk about insanity.i was dying a day at a time and now im LIVING ONE DAY AT A TIME and loving it ,happy joyous and free a brand new life.i turned 50 a few months ago and i never thought id make 21.didnt care.no self worth, couldnt fit in anywhere,now ive got a life beyond my wildest dreams,not so much in the material sense but in the emotional and spiritual,and dont get me wrong im not a religious person ,but i do have a power that guides me when i stop to ask and look for the signs.and a will to live ,and share my joy.and also share my story ,in the hope that someone as desperate as i was will identify with my story, and seek a way out of pain, misery and suffering.

I walked into the fellowship in Jan/1988. Though i drank one night in all those years, i can tell you this: Back then i desperately wanted to find a way to live. Today, i do live! I too have an 03 FLHR. It's not my higher power, but it's better than having a girl friend! At least the bike doesn't become prideful and start crap! Silky

Man, I could write a book about drinking and motorcycles!
I've been sober almost 21 years and haven't fallen off a bike, dropped one or been arrested on one in all that time. Not to say I don't deserve to when I'm going 135mph but I won't fall off LOL. I used to get sideways every day and ride. When I was 18 or so all I had was a bike for a few years and rode year round. And most of the time drunk. I was never a one or two beer person. I was always drunk. So were the people I rode with back then. In 1983 I broadsided a Ford Granada at about 40 mph, got thrown into the air back into U.S. 1 and run over and drug down the highway a few feet LOL.. I got mangled, burnt and broken up pretty good. I was so drunk I couldn't see let alone be on a bike. I have bones that still to this day hurt from that one. And other crashes. Been down that road and I will not ride with anyone who has had more than one or two drinks. To each his own. I haven't flipped a bike over on top of myself in over 20 years trying to show off.... drunk... or worn all the skin off my arms and legs and hands falling over....drunk. Must be something to this not drinking and riding thing! It's crazy enough as it is dealing with all the cars and stupid teenagers and bad drivers on cell phones in cars without adding alcohol to that mix.
I know plenty of people who have died on bikes when they were drunk and many who have lived. I don't know many that have died or crashed when they were sober. A few but not as many as the drinkers and druggers I've known over the years. People can do what they want but I have the scars and aching bones and torn ligaments to prove what drinking and riding can do! I do not miss those back seat car rides to the place with the bars and metal toilets and fingerprint machines. Waking up in jail with a hangover just isn't my idea of fun anymore. I made a lot of those trips also. I guess I do like riding sober....

Yeah man, That was my worst fear is being the person every body read about.
The guy who wasn't thinking and did himself in and maybe someone else too.
I praise ther Lord I haven't drank in over 21 years.....it ain't all been good but so much better than I could have hoped for if I'd have been drinking all these years....I know of at least 5 guys from Highschool that are dead from drinking excessivly, the good news is one of my best friends was about to die from it & repented and now has a great life with his wife and daughter, Happy trails, Cowboy Wayne