I learnt that my mother was right and that if I didn't change my ways, I was going to die.
I learnt that lesson after a solid weekend of Hillbrow pub crawling with the mates in the early 80's, Friday night, sorry, very early saturday morning I crashed all by myself on my way home, a highside (that's a whole story on its own) , eventually got home, passed out, in the afternoon, woke up, ate, went back to hillbrow with multiple aches and pains as a result on the highside on friday but everything seemed to work ok, but now had to push start the bike as the kickstarter got damaged in the prang, sunday was a repeat of friday & saturday, just without the crash so pretty much blotto.
Woke up Monday to go to work and my left leg from the knee down to the tips of my toes looked like a chameleon on a smartie box, fat and every colour you can imagine. The doctor at the hospital was somewhat un-sympathetic, it turned out I had 5 breaks in my left ankle......
After that I changed the way I rode and have now, contrary to all expectations in the family, including me, pretty much outlived them all.