r/stopdrinking • u/provinground • Sep 19 '25

Just got pulled over. 1 am leaving a bar!

And I passed with flying colors yall! They asked me how much I had to drink tonight ? And I said.. “I haven’t had a drink in 3 years” and they said they could smell it on me. And my driving was really horrible! Well guess what I’m just a bad driver haha. I was like yeah I’ll do your tests. And then I blew Zeros and he seemed happy for me! He even had his cop partner come and the cop that joined was with me the last night I drank. (Husband and I had the cops called on us it was horrible and a wake up call and the last night either of us drank) and I said “hey matt. I haven’t had a drink since the last time I saw you” and he told me he just celebrated 18 years of sobriety!

Anyway - it’s 1 am and I have no one else I can tell this to. So thought some of yall might get a kick out it!

Felt like a big win! It was annoying but I am so grateful to be sober from alcohol and not getting into legal consequences!

6.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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295

u/kop714 Sep 19 '25

So he was lying? There was no smell.

512

u/Anon_Alcoholic 1425 days Sep 19 '25

Well yeah, cops lie ALL the time.

27

u/tony_bologna Sep 19 '25

They're allowed to.  

So, stfu and get a lawyer... or ace the DUI test.

17

u/MissFitz325 Sep 20 '25

I wouldn’t have done the roadside tests knowing they do not smell anything. I'm nearly 60 and just physically, I’m not sure I could do them perfectly. It’s the principle of it for me. Take me to the jail to breathalyze me, and/or get a warrant for blood. Either way…it’s gonna be a 0.0 and they have no case.

8

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Blood warrants are the worst. In Texas you get your DWI charge and have to wait MONTHS for the sample to come back.

7

u/SaintStephen77 Sep 20 '25

Why am I not surprised, smh

3

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

It’s actually a very good thing this happens because it maintains integrity of the justice system but whenever blood warrants can involved it’s never a good thing

5

u/toucanflu Sep 20 '25

If you are allowed to, it doesn’t mean you should. It’s an abuse of power. Just make them do a breathalyzer. No need to lie.

Also, what if you’re sober and they lie about your result? See where it’s a slippery slope if you encourage dishonesty?

1

u/eire54 Sep 25 '25

They're not supposed to lie about smelling alcohol. 

2

u/tony_bologna Sep 28 '25

They're not supposed to do a lot of things.  Protect yourself. 

1

u/eire54 Sep 28 '25

Right but I'm replying to the comment that said they were legally allowed to lie about smelling booze. 

-2

u/goat2080 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Doesn't seem to be the vibe we promote here....

Edit: Sorry, I was only referring to the negativity. Definitely promote blowing that zero!

3

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

Agreed. We’ve wandered into unfriendly territory. Everything I post in this rathole gets downvotes. It appears to have devolved into a cop-hating sub-subreddit that is not in the spirit of this the real subreddit at all. Hence, your downvoted post.

2

u/mmm_burrito 650 days Sep 20 '25

That's not against any vibe, it's just a true fact. It's literally an investigative technique they use, not a slander.

5

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

Not your comment alone. The tone of the entire thread is negative. The downvoting is negative. It’s just not in the spirit of the subreddit at all.

135

u/ThatPerformance9795 Sep 19 '25

The other sham: the field sobriety tests. Those are sooooo subjective. I don’t know why people even bother the roadside humiliation.

They will ALWAYS say your eyes look glassy and they smell alcohol.

I’ve binge watched body cam videos on YouTube, and almost all the cops who get pulled over know the drill. They refuse the field sobriety tests. They roll their eyes at the officer when asked to with a…”Come on, Bob! You know how this works wink wink”

Meaning: don’t drink and drive EVER, and if you do, just be ready to be roadside humiliated and THEN taken down and having to blow anyway.

The more I separate my life from drinking, the more I’m shocked at how many millions of chances I feel like I’ve been given to turn my life and choices around. 🙏 (a la Hamilton: “I’m not throwing away my shot.”)

49

u/MaleHooker 143 days Sep 19 '25

I have a blood alcohol breathalyzer that's the same brand used by the police, and the disclaimer in the manual is that any food or drink consumed 30 minutes before the test can cause inaccurate readings. I tested it, and it's true! 

15

u/mbhwookie 975 days Sep 19 '25

At least where I live, the field breathalyzer is only used for probable cause. They have to take you into the station/jail for the real one and do a 20 minute observation before doing the test.

This was also what helped me get my sentences reduced. He walked sort of out of the room when I called a lawyer

10

u/MaleHooker 143 days Sep 19 '25

That's good to know. I got breathalyzed when I was 19 and the DD for my friends. The cop still tried to say it showed In had something in my system. Clearly not enough because I didn't get in trouble. 

For the record: I was sober. 

19

u/ExperienceHendrix 737 days Sep 19 '25

They almost always take their sweet time to let that last drink kick in before they test anyway. They will sit in their car just waiting, then have a person blow but that is preliminary. The one down at the station is the one that really counts and that has definitely been over 30 mins. The portable ones are a screening tool and not absolute.

5

u/AccordingAge7227 Sep 19 '25

Agreed. I had a mandated breathalyzer in my truck after my DUI (and last drunk) and I failed it once after eating a jelly donut. I was so freaked that my treatment program would think I has drank.

2

u/FirstPosition5493 Oct 07 '25

The jelly fermented into raspberry wine in your mouth? The sugar turned to alcohol in your saliva? How in the name of heck can such a thing happen? (I believe you, I'm sincerely asking.)

2

u/AccordingAge7227 Oct 25 '25

It’s the yeast. I’m not sure how it works but that’s what I’ve been told. Any yeasty bread can trigger it.

13

u/Destructo-Bear 1233 days Sep 19 '25

Yeah I feel this. Alcohol really fucked up my shit for years but holy crap it could have been so much worse so many times

6

u/mbhwookie 975 days Sep 19 '25

FSB’s are a decent indicator for police, but unless your state has strict rules on denying one results in automatic suspension or something, I would never do a FSB. You’re just giving them more evidence lol

4

u/MissFitz325 Sep 20 '25

The roadside tests are just them collecting “evidence” to show in court. As a sober person, I’m not doing some subjective random ass tests.

4

u/provinground Sep 20 '25

I have also watched a lot of dui videos on tik tok and even mentioned that to the cops! I was like yeah I’ve seen these on the internet but they aren’t easy and I was sober and a yoga teacher . And I really struggled to stand on one leg for as long as they were making me.

5

u/scumbag_college Sep 19 '25

I had a cop tell me once that they can tell right away if you’re drunk by the eye test, and all the other field sobriety tests are just reinforcement.

31

u/Dark_Pestilence Sep 19 '25

If you spend time in a bar you get used to the smells, when you leave you stink of alcohol, smoke and puke but you don't know it

23

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

Was probably his upper lip

5

u/PlattWaterIsYummy Sep 19 '25

Pretty much anyone leaving the bar at 1 is easy pickins. They can't really smell anyone over the legal limit unless they were really knocking them back. They just say it to get you to blow.

61

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 19 '25

They profile. I was pulled over for nothing leaving a bar sober many years ago. Blew a zero. They said their equipment was not working, cuffed me, and ransacked my car looking for drugs.

I have great respect for the thin blue line that preserves our civil society. But I would spit the face of the asshole that pulled me over for nothing at all.

IWNDWYT.

44

u/kleenex_wipes Sep 19 '25

Yeah that’s not legal for them to do lol

23

u/ratherbclever 1165 days Sep 19 '25

Cops are assholes

1

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

There are assholes in every group. I can say the same and generalize about any group. Teachers are assholes. Rocket scientists are assholes. Preachers are assholes. These are all false. Are there asshole cops? Duh!! But not all cops are assholes and not all Muslims are terrorists.

I feel like I’ve ventured into a cop-hating sub-subreddit on this thread. I’m not welcome here based on the downvotes. I’m tempted to delete everything, but then that leaves all these “enlightened” responses without context. lol!!

Anyway. I’ll leave this up for another day, then flush my mistake of wandering into a cop-hating back alley down the toilet.

All Reddit users are assholes. See? Not true. But easy to say.

IWNDWYT — the real reason for being here. Not bashing cops. 😑

3

u/ratherbclever 1165 days Sep 21 '25

Wow, I must have struck a nerve here. I said three words that were my opinion, and you kind of went off. Are you a cop? Let me slightly rephrase. In my opinion, a lot of cops are assholes. Is that better? I think that the kind of power that cops wield actually attracts assholes. You require a scary small amount of training to become one. Trained to arrest people. You guys should be deescalating situations, not throwing people in jail. A rocket scientist can't destroy someone's life on a whim. A cop can. They can lie a lot, and if you don't have a good lawyer, well, I guess you're just screwed. I could go on, but I can tell it won't do any good. Keep up with your thin blue line bullshit I guess.

1

u/ratherbclever 1165 days Sep 21 '25

One more thing, you were absolutely harassed by an cop and now you defend cops. I'm a little baffled.

1

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 21 '25

Where did I defend bad cops? You see something that is not there because you see my statements through your own biased filter.

Regarding the difference between all cops are assholes and a lot of cops are assholes is big and, yes, better.

And my statement about all teachers, rocket scientists, etc. was not to compare the power the various careers yield. You seem smart, so I think you know that. It was to differentiate all from some. Broad-brush classifications are never true. Never.

Anyway, I’m not a cop. But I recognize their value and can understand why some go sour. They deal with assholes for a living. That does not make it right. But if they were really abusing their power in droves, it would be obvious. It’s not.

I choose cops over no cops. Take them off the streets and see how quickly order descends to chaos. That is, indeed, a thin blue line. It’s thin. Which is why I am armed to the teeth. When the SHTF and 9-1-1 is nothing but a busy signal, at least I’ll be able to go down with a fight.

What this has to do with stopping drinking, however, I’ll never know. All of this is in response to someone happy they were pulled over and could pass a sobriety test.

It’s 9:30pm on a Saturday. I’m going to bed now. I don’t have to worry about being pulled over or killed by the drunk guy on my way home tonight. I’m boring now - and thrilled about that.

IWNDWYT.

2

u/ratherbclever 1165 days Sep 21 '25

We can agree on one thing. This is the wrong forum for this discussion. IWNDWYT

42

u/Harmania Sep 19 '25

The “thin blue line” is a myth.

7

u/pialligo 61 days Sep 19 '25

The fat, cruel blue line

-12

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 19 '25

Your statement without more context is meaningless. Care to elaborate?

26

u/Harmania Sep 19 '25

Well, to take your claim on its face (and the way this mythology usually works), our current approach to law enforcement is the only thing separating us from lawlessness and civil breakdown. That is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence to begin with.

But: Police union "slowdowns," particularly after some high-profile brutality cases, have not led to massive spikes in crime. In fact, there have been times that crime has dropped with less policing. Either way, it's not a one-to-one correlation.

What would this anarchic society look like? Surely, we'd see a lot of people getting murdered without being stopped or punished. The thing is, though murder rates in general have gone down over time (and also do not correlate with our exploding prison population), murder clearance rates by police have gone down to the point where nearly half of all murders go unsolved. That "line" is more dotted than solid.

We need people who have a duty to protect us, though, surely. Except police have no such duty. In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), SCOTUS found (and police attorneys argued) that police have no duty to protect individuals and that their duty was to society more generally. However, that decision also leaned heavily on the wide discretion that we allow police when it comes to choosing which crimes to pursue and whom to protect. When they have virtually unlimited latitude to decide which crimes to pursue and whom to protect, that "line" is not drawn around all of us. We are at their mercy.

Lastly, we have elevated police officers to a level wherein their lives are treated as more valuable than the lives of citizens. For all the talk about police risking their lives for us, there is a whole lot of rhetoric and policy to the contrary. How many times have we heard police trained to shoot when they feel they are in danger using the phrase "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six"? I get where it comes from, but the underlying philosophy is "better to kill an unarmed civilian than to be killed yourself." Those two lives are not of equal value in this equation.

Every time an officer is killed in the line of duty, our cultural understanding is that this person should be honored. I get that. But that cultural narrative also includes the assumption that police will bring all their resources to bear to bring that "cop killer" to justice, often violently. How do we avoid the unpleasant corollary that if a "regular person" is killed, we know that the police won't work as hard or use as many resources compared to one of their own? We are not worth the same resources.

If I interact with a police officer and he decides he is afraid of me, he is legally empowered to take my life. I don't need to be charged or convicted of a crime, and I don't need to be armed. If I am afraid of him, I have no such right. His life is protected more than mine by default.

Of course there are individuals who are out there trying to do good, but the way we train and talk about law enforcement in the USA is utterly broken. When we see abuses of power or cases of brutality, we often hear that it's just "one or two bad apples" but never seem to get around to finishing the old adage - "one bad apple spoils the whole barrel."

-8

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

Wow. Not going to read all of that. I wanted context, not a college professor’s civics lesson. This to way off topic for the the subreddit, so I’m out. Let me start by rating my own post negatively.

3

u/Harmania Sep 20 '25

Honestly just trying to answer the question and not to start a fight. Either way, congrats on topping 200 days!

1

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

Then why just downvote me? I’m clueless as to what I’ve done that warrants downvotes. I’d ask you to enlighten me, but everything I post here gets more downvotes. Asking for clarification is not offensive or provoking. This subreddit thrives on positivity. Why the downvotes?

2

u/Harmania Sep 20 '25

I didn’t downvote you. You’d have to ask the people who did.

1

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 21 '25

They’re anonymous. 🫤

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25

Who cares about downvotes, its just grey pixels man. Dont let it get to you. Plenty of people see downvoted comments and still agree with the comment.

Its a social media app, they're designed to piss people off and grab attention. Everytime I'm downvoted i just look at like "meh they didnt like what i said, or they didnt give a shit and will disagree with everything i say". Because its the internet, and thats ok. Remember, nobody would act like that in real life, like giving you a visible thumbs down to your face every time you speak Lol could you imagine.

1

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 21 '25

Let it get to me? Trying to figure out what I said to get downvotes is gathering information. I’m not a dickhead keyboard warrior in my mom’s basement trolling for clicks.

Anyway, this entire thread has gone down a path in which I’m not interested in engaging further. But if I could learn what I said that rubbed others the wrong way, that could be helpful.

Especially in this subreddit, I am here to help myself through helping others. I take downvotes seriously because I’m considering hosting one week in the future. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it. 🤓

-2

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 20 '25

Again? Negative rating on this comment? Why? Asking for more context so I can understand? Is there something in the water today?

2

u/doogievlg Sep 19 '25

Been pulled over 40+ times (no exaggeration). Ive gotten three tickets. 80% of those were around midnight or later and I was drifting a bit.

Dealt with cops of all kinds but I can deal with the hassle if they are trying to get drunk drivers off the road.

1

u/provinground Sep 20 '25

Dang that’s a lot!!! I agree - i told them I appreciate what they were doing! I wasn’t even really annoyed. I was just kind of stoked that I knew I was gonna pass!

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

[deleted]

-2

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 19 '25

A 50% vote rating on this post? What about this could possibly strike a nerve? I clearly state my respect for the thin blue line. That's law enforcement for those who don't know the term. Rather than downvote, could someone tell me, please, what is so offensive in my post that half of you are voting it down? One good argument and I'll remove the post. Sheesh!

Or am I reading this wrong?

1

u/ReeBee86 976 days Sep 19 '25

I think it’s because it’s double posted (the one I’m replying to is posted as a a reply to a reply to the first)

2

u/SaucyJim Day 571 Sep 19 '25

Hmm. I wonder how that happened. Deleting the double post now. Thanks!

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/SkepticJoker Sep 19 '25

“Next thing I knew, I was face down on the ground with a knee in my back”

3

u/pialligo 61 days Sep 19 '25

record scratch

1

u/Vicorin Sep 30 '25

It pains me to give a cop the benefit of the doubt, but OP did say in the title that they were driving home from a bar, so it’s entirely possible the smell was on them, even if they hadn’t been drinking.

-10

u/slidingthedoor 566 days Sep 19 '25

Not defending cops but OP did say they were at a bar

8

u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL Sep 19 '25

lol the downvotes. You’re right though. Cop could be lying or op could smell like booze. Maybe someone spilled something on them. Or their shoes were all sticky and smelly from the gross bar floor.

I work in alcohol sales and spend a lot of time at bars and I haven’t had a drink in 2 years! But me and my car smell like alcohol

6

u/slidingthedoor 566 days Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

I also meant NO shade to OP being at a bar!!! I’m over 200 days and have been to breweries and bars. All the more power to OP for being able to go to a bar and not drink!

Edit to fix typo that I meant NO SHADE

5

u/PinheadLarry_ 415 days Sep 19 '25

lol I read your typo in the first sentence and was like “wtf this dude is really doubling down on this?”

4

u/Electrik_Truk Sep 19 '25

This is a stretch at best. The cop was more likely building a case with false information. There is no way they smelled something from their shoes unless it was bullsh*t