Yes, in a controlled experiment.*
I did not feel drunk. (That was the controlled-experiment part.)
But, I also did not drive badly. We were tested. I still drove better “drunk” than most of the others in the experiment did sober. We were judged on whether we veered out of lanes, whether we hit any pedestrians (cones & cardbooard things rolled out into our way), and one panic stop (cardboard pedestrian).
The only thing that changed when I was “drunk”–and drunk is putting it very extremely–was that my time increased.
But, we also knew we were being tested, which may have inspired us to work a little harder at driving better. And slow down.
Honestly, when I first got a cell phone and tried to drive while talking on it, I thought that was a much bigger challenge, but then I learned how to do it. After all, my husband was a cab driver, he handled a cab, talked on the radio, and talked to a passenger, writing up his trip sheet as he went, and he learned all that just fine. But that first time, sheesh.
*Maybe one or two other times in the distant past.
Yes, when I lived in rural Ireland. I believe things are different now, but it was quite widespread at the time.
Nope. Whenever I’d do a day long bender I always made sure I didn’t have to drive anywhere that day, or that my driving was done before I started.
I’m surprised at the amount of “no’s” in this thread TBH.
Knowing that the board skews older I figured there would be more “Yes, in my youth before we knew better” than there are. Figured the focus on drinking and driving is a newer thing.
Yes, of course.
Twice, once after a friend’s bachelor party and once on my last day of work when my cow-orkers congratulated me on my escape. I think the alkies on the board would call it really, really, buzzed, but I’m such a lightweight, it felt like drunk to me.
The second time I carefully drove around the corner out of sight and stopped in a parking lot for an hour before continuing on.
My stepfather was a drunk driver who thought it was funny to shut the headlights off at night while he was swerving down the road. As a result, if I have any amount of alcohol I refuse to drive.
It would be interesting to see the ages. Still, even back in the old pre-MADD days not everyone was as stupid as we were. And some didn’t have cars.
Yep. In college in the 1970s I did it routinely.
But in the last 35 years or so? Definitely not.
Numerous times, back in college, usually over the summer. During the school year one could get as much to drink as you could without leaving campus - Thursday pub nights, Friday afternoon cocktails (which the university president and a lot of faculty would frequently attend), Friday and Saturday night parties.
Over the summer, though, we would need to drive into the city to find bars that would serve our underage asses. Many times I’d wake up on Sunday morning and rush to the front window to make sure I had parked the car straight. I always parked on the street next to a telephone pole, I have no idea how I never hit that pole.
I am pretty sure I have not. I have looked up some of those BAC charts where they estimate your BAC based on number of drinks per hour and your body weight. I’ve had five drinks in an hour, and I wasn’t buzzed - I was hammered. And that’s barely to the .08 level.
My folks let us drink when we were younger, so it was never forbidden fruit, and we learned to pace ourselves. Plus I figured out pretty quick that drinking can be fun, but getting drunk per se isn’t.
The good side of that is that you don’t get arrested or into fights or into trouble. The bad side is that, at high school parties, I was always the one driving people home, cleaning up the barf, hiding the knives, etc.
Attitudes have changed, for sure. My son and daughter take “who’s going to be the designated driver?” pretty much for granted.
Regards,
Shodan
It would also be interesting to see how long ago was the last time you did it. For me, I was too old for the “young and stupid” defense.I was probably in my Mid-30s (late 1990s)
For people who were around when drunk driving was acceptable, what is a modern thing we all do that you think will be looked at just as badly in the future?
Like is using your phone while driving considered just as bad as drunk driving but everyone does it? Supposedly using your phone while driving is just as dangerous as drunk driving, but I’ve done it and so have most people I know.
In 1990, I took a motorcycle trip all around Ireland (Republic and Northern Ireland). It was a lovely, if somewhat damp, couple of weeks.
I was riding a motorcyle that attracted quite a bit of attention – Harley-Davidsons were then pretty uncommon, apparently, in Ireland.
One day a local club saw me, waved me over, and invited me to join them at a pub a couple of miles up the road. They all wanted to check out my bike.
I joined them, and I had a pint with them. And no more – I know my limits.
Them? Holy shit, well, I would (and probably could) never ride after four pints in quick succession.
Still, nice guys, and I had a great time hanging with them.
I haven’t had alcohol since my first communion, so that’s an easy “no”.
The stats on teetotalers are often surprising: Almost a third of (adult) Americans and about half the adult population of the world do not drink at all, for various reasons. About 80% of those are apparently folks who never did, the rest are folks (well represented in this thread) who did and have given it up.
Even post high-school and college (the peak of the “drinking years,”), the folks who aren’t partying usually outnumber those who are, but they’re invisible and we don’t tend to notice them.
Those populations seem to be enough to fill in the poll numbers.
For myself, I’ve never been drunk or “buzzed.” I do drink (about once a year), usually something very very flavored because I find the taste of alcohol itself disgusting, and I often don’t finish it. Not religious or cultural in my case, I just never developed a taste for the stuff.
I guess I’m an outlier here. I drink regularly but I’ve never driven drunk.
Maybe it helped that when I was young and stupid I didn’t have a car.
Before what?
Before noon.
I like beer. I used to drink and drive on a somewhat regular basis. And then I got arrested for DUI in 2005. (Pleaded to a reduced charge.) It was actually a good thing; because since then, I have never once driven after drinking.