over 65% of the guys I started trucking with at the age of 17 have passed away, most of them passed over 10 years ago. Back then it was COE's and lines and lines of Meth across the doghouse before we all took off.
I never partook. Scared the shit outta me. They would run circles around me... I would run steady. They made more money than me but as time went on, their teeth decayed, their will decayed, energy, looks... their psychotic thought-processing was aired incessantly over the C.B...and they just tuckered out completely.
Pretty soon they were hunting for a baggie but had no intention of setting foot in that stirrup.
Other guys, beer cans on the doghouse, right through the scale houses, free beer from Budweiser in Van Nuys....
I'm no better than anyone, I just never had the desire to put things into my body that scared me or that I knew could have adverse effects. For example: The kids in junior high who started drinking and soon turned into full-blown alcoholics by High School.... light occasional smokers who became 3 pack a dayers by the end of High School days... including my older brother, who is now a paraplegic due to a motorcylce accident last year.
As the years went on, these same drivers developed noticeable physical changes, facial changes, attitude changes... all became intolerable to most everyone
Later, these same individuals became unrecognizable... their wives left them, remarried, kids disowned them... and then... the inevitable
I have no idea why I was spared the desire to ever drink, smoke or do dope, but I am thankful today. It was probably my upbringing. My parents did not allow television or stereos. They did make us all learn to play instruments and to be creative and for some of us; sports. That was my direction was Music and Sports and Art.
I can still spot a tweaker a mile away... i see them at the truckshows.. I used to dispatch them, run with them... you don't forget certain things when everyone is staring at a guy who drives for the same company you do and he is standing there picking incessantly at things that don't even exist on his face... or just talking cosmic jibberish
There are a group of guys out there though, in their 60's and beyond, they might smoke a bit, but they run.. and they run hard. I don't know how they do it. I've driven for 48 hours before without stopping (except to pee)... and I was straight.. but I would mess myself up so bad that it would take me a week to get right again.
Mad respect to the real hardcore truckers who just love what they do and have an unsurpassable work ethic. You don't meet them often as they don't ever sit long.
I always say "Trucking isn't for everyone, and if you've got a family, it probably isn't for you"... unless you started trucking before you started your family. Then you just gotta deal with whatever may come.... or go.
I'm one of those guys who is always in a flux of a love/hate relationship with my long-nosed Pete.
I don't imagine that will change anytime soon.
...and as far as "knowing when to stop" ... I think all my buddies knew... they just 'couldn't...'
If they did, you would see their dash torn apart or their C.B.s looking like spider webs of wires and such as you climbed out of your sleeper to start the day.
I guess DOT drug-testing and randoms has managed to slow most of that stuff down these days, but obviously, not completely ~
Everyone has a crutch. Mine is O.C.D. and it applies to everything I do. Highly annoying for me and for those around me I'm sure.
Where was I??
Oh yeah, rambling. That's another crutch.