Michael66

I hope he wasn't given a pilot's licence within weeks of a bender. Did he not have to convince people he was stable in sobriety? If not, then I believe a mistake was made.

Mountainmanbob

Police: Drunken cab driver arrested after driving erratically, ignoring pleas from passengers

Published: Tuesday, April 02, 2013


BALLSTON SPA — Two passengers went on a taxi ride from hell early Sunday morning, when they realized their cab driver was drunk and refused to pull over, according to the village police department.

Larry Northrop, 61, of Saratoga was charged with multiple counts of driving while ability impaired by alcohol and drugs and traffic violations. Northrop also was operating the taxi on a suspended license, police said.

After the driver refused the passenger’s requests to pull over and let them out, they phoned Capitaland Taxi and told the dispatcher their driver was driving erratically and swerving across the road.

When the driver also ignored the taxi dispatch demands to stop the cab, the dispatcher contacted police.

The taxi was stopped by police at 4:06 a.m. on Doubleday Avenue after police observed the speeding vehicle swerving in and out the traffic lane.

Capitaland declined comment on how Northrop was allowed to operate a cab without a license, but said they typically check potential employees’ driving records. The city of Saratoga Springs, where Capitaland is based, also requires a license to operate a cab. The deputy of the Accounts Department, where those records are kept, declined to comment Monday on whether he was licensed.

neferkamichael

Justfor1, there are numerous threads about talking the same way you are, and I too have questioned why I should stay sober, more so recently than 2 years 11 months and 18 days ogo when I made a commitment to quit. I believe that I expected more out of sobriety than what I have, but I don't let myself forget the poverty stricken wretch I had become. I can honestly say that my life now is better than it was before I quit drinking, and I have only moved up the ladder from poverty to poor. It's just one less problem I have in my life. Rootin for ya.

Tamerua

I know you don't want to sit in the lap of Buddha or anything. and you're right, a drunk pilot shouldn't have a license. But you and no one here can do anything about that. You can only focus on you and getting better.

GracieLou

Since you like to tell about others that got a second chance then pick up the AA Big book. Read the story titled "Grounded".

It is about a pilot, that got his license back. Coincidence, I think not. Good read.

Go and do what he did. If you don't have a Big book then you can read it online for free. Page 522.

Big Book Online Fourth Edition

davaidavai

I can relate to this frame of mind. I'm a year and 3 months sober, and my life is extremely arid. I work. I come home and watch netflix. With me it's not thing, not a new car, house. It's wanting not to be alone so much, wanting to be with people I can talk to who understand me. I have a hard time finding these people. I certainly haven't found them in AA.

I think there's something important there at the pool of one's dissatisfaction and resentment. It's an awareness that the world really is a screwed up place. Anger (and I'm angry all the time) seems to be like a half measure, like a wish that everything would be perfect. I wonder if accepting the grotesque of the everyday -- totally, uncompromisingly observing the greed and false motivations at play in the world -- is a means toward also beginning to recognize the good things.

Anyways. There are moments when I feel happy that I managed to pass through the latest round of temptations and dissatisfactions and I recall how hard the cycle was to break; how the alcohol joy had become really only a 15 minute crack high.

There's no chance to evolve with crack. I agree more or less about facing anger and resentment, but I think an under observed part of this process is seeing the world clearly and not letting it destroy you. In other words, maybe some sort of maturation process where you learn to live in and relish living in the world playing the cards you were dealt. I think accepting it, entering its flow with the good and the positively wretched, observing the vividness of it all, is perhaps natural rich experience we're supposed to have. Only in our lives, I think one common factor among drunks is that we are often people who were never given any semblance of directions.

alphaomega

I am fairly new to this site and stumbled upon this post. Being that you seem to be a hot topic around here, I decided to go back and read your threads.

At first, I thought this guy has to be kidding me. Putting your life in jeopardy with the driving is one thing. Putting others (and god forbid, children) is another story altogether. Your complete lack of regard for others borders instability if not full on psychosis. You sounded like a spoiled baby brat who whined at every chance. Poor you.

Then I read more. There have been earnest attempts to get your **** together and make something out of yourself. You have been dealt a challenged hand no doubt being born and raised on the west side. You have also learned quite well how to work the system and figure out, quite intelligently I might add, how to bilk it for everything it's worth.

I lost my ability to drive because of alcohol induced phobia about 15 years ago. And now I thank god for that gift. Who knows the horrifying choices I would have made if I could get in a car wasted. And, just like you, I feel sorry for myself. Often. That has gotten me absolutely no where but down. I have a host of other issues that I'm quite sure you could give a snot about, but, strangely, I get you.

Somewhere, beyond everything else, I am you. Spoiled, self centered, self absorbed and scared. Terrified. Like, I'm talking, Incapable of functioning in normal society scared.

So if you never know another thing, you struck something in me that made me see you for exactly who you are.

Me.

wellwisher

If:

1 .The measure of my worth is dependent on the baubles I present to society.
2. The hole that I've dug for myself is too big to dig myself out of.
3. Society has branded me with the "alcoholic" label as I exhibit dependence on the system, knowing they will care for me when the bottom falls out.
4. I believe alcoholism is a disease which can absolve me of responsibility for my life.
5. I have given sobriety a single year to work out for me, although I have spent decades digging the hole.
6. I focus on others in recovery, take their inventory and think I am being unfairly treated when they succeed and get second chances.

Then:

1. I will strive for material wealth to make me happy.
2. I will stare at the abyss behind me as if it is a comfortable, old leather shoe, and hang on to it. I will glimpse fearfully into the future, and will turn away quickly.
3. I will blame society, accept the label, and give up, for it is my destiny in life.
4. I will drink and drug with abandon.
5. I will draw red lines on what I am willing to do to get out of the hole, ensuring I remain in the hole.
6. I will believe I am a victim to a disease and society.

Therefore:

Sobriety is not worth it.

****************
Faulty geometric equation, Just. Change the "If's" and the "Then's" in the assumptions and your "Therefore" will have a different outcome.

tomsteve

[QUOTE=Justfor1;4040994] go ask him this question. the FAA is a wee bit strict on this.

look up lyle p. AA speaker.

john44

Yeah, I can relate to that. The "magic" in the bottle is gone. It doesn't work for me anymore. That door is closed. I can't drink now more than a few days and then I'm begging for detox. It's a good thing that there's a solution (and I'm lucky to be alive to embrace that solution...so are you). By embracing sobriety and working a program of recovery, I don't HAVE to feel like that anymore.

2granddaughters

Is Sobriety Overated???

Depends on what you perceive as "sobriety".

If you mean dry, as in not putting the bottle in your mouth, then I would say for me it would be intolerable. The alcohol is what I used to treat my alcoholism and when it is removed I become irritable, unfulfilled, filled with fear & pain and eventually suicidal as there is no relief.

When I first heard the Promises of AA read at a meeting I knew that was what I wanted/needed and the first step toward getting the Promises to come true is stop drinking and begin working the 12 Steps.
I had to begin to grow/heal/change in my physical/mental/emotional/spiritual life.
Google and read the "AA Promises" .. stopping drinking isn't mentioned.

True AA sobriety began when I put the bottle down and as I work the 12 Steps I have found no need to return to the bottle or drugs.

I am 23 yrs into AA recovery and life keeps getting better just as the oldtimers promised. I have many AA friends with 30-40 yrs in recovery and they are continuing to grow as well. It is never over. I can quit anytime but I would only be selling myself short and I don't do that anymore. AA is as important to me as food & water ... without food, water or AA for an extended period of time would prove fatal.

It says so simply in the AA Promises "We will be amazed before we are halfway through". If you haven't felt the amazement then you aren't half way through.

I hated that feeling of "hanging on by a thread" .. I don't have to go back there.

The trick is don't give up before the miracle happens and we are as alcoholics inclined to quit when the going gets tough.

Just my $ 0.02 Canadian.

All the best.

Bob R

Justfor1

[QUOTE=alphaomega;4042089]
Then I read more. There have been earnest attempts to get your **** together and make something out of yourself. You have been dealt a challenged hand no doubt being born and raised on the west side. You have also learned quite well how to work the system and figure out, quite intelligently I might add, how to bilk it for everything it's worth.

Thank you for the post and digging deeper to see that I have had honest attempts at sobriety. I have achieved periods of sobriety here and there. IMO, many folks here do relate to me but do not like to admit it. I feel a bit better lately. The last two weeks I have averaged 40+ hrs working. I did some roofing along with my fast food type job.

Mountainmanbob

Boleo

[QUOTE=Justfor1;4042547] Oddly enough I do relate to you. I to felt like a victim in my early attempts at getting sober. Then I heard someone say "Victims don't stay sober". It made me re-examine my perspective. I was too focused on the all my outside problems when I should have been focused on the inside solution.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...miliation.html

wiscsober

I have been at this point many times living sober.

First off in recovery I will never be an AA guru...nor
do I think of old-timers being that way, nor bible thumpers.

Certainly as an agnostic I won't be seated in any deity's lap
in heaven or hell.

I have had the same thoughts you posted here....many long periods of sobriety and just as many relapses.

Simply, it is an emotional relapse that is leading up to a physical one.

As alcoholics to drink is to die.

All of those material things come to us because we live soberly, and make decisions to obtain those things. Sobriety doesn't come about when we have time for it between work, recreation, family life.

If alcoholic, as you stated, and you drink, you pretty much are signing a death sentence.....sometimes it comes quick....most times the disease drags you along the bottom for years on end.

I hope you remain sober....I now take the tac of what I can give instead of what I want.

Peace.

ClearLight

That's just a fantasy you're having to make yourself feel special. As if you're the only one with the courage to say this stuff.

But it's not true and you're not courageous. You're hiding from the real world.

soberlicious

Wow. So well said. Especially the bolded part.

Justfor1, I believe that whatever it is you need to learn, it will continue to be presented to you in different forms over and over and over again in your life until you get the lesson. When you get it, then you will experience relief. The universe never leaves it alone until the lesson is learned.

It is your resistance that is creating your suffering, not the actual things you believe you are suffering over.

ScottFromWI

The bottom line on your original question, is that only you can answer for yourself if sobriety is worth it for you. This is a recovery website, so most if us here do think it is, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here. There are facts...that extended abuse can lead to dire consequences, even death. And some decide that they don't think sobriety is worth it...and they die because of hat decision, or live otherwise unhealthy lives. Its also against forum rules as well to encourage or condone drinking/using so no one is going to tell you to just bag it and head back to the bottle.

So you tell us the answer.

DG0409

+1

My thoughts exactly.

Justfor1

Thank you for all the responses. I guess I have quite a bit to think about. I think this thread is about done.