Wheels Down –
July 28, 2020 – About three years ago, he decided he’d had enough. “One day, I just said I needed to clean up and get my head on straight,” said the 49-year-old Brockton man. “But I was getting bored. I found myself not being around anybody. It was kind of like the old saying, ‘If you wanna find out who your real friends are, quit drinking.’”
A motorcycle enthusiast, Bullio ultimately founded a motorcycle club exclusively for sober men called the Last Chance Motorcycle Club. Bullio says he was the sole member of the club for a time – he didn’t know anyone else in the clean and sober community – but he soon met Tom Ventosi, of Quincy, who helped expand membership.
“It basically started to help other alcoholics and drug users in recovery get a little more out of life and find a niche where they belonged,” Ventosi, who has been sober since 1986, said. “Anybody that reaches out, whether they ride in the club and have a patch or want to ride and just hang out, or are sober and just need someone to talk to, we’re there.”
For the club patch, Bullio borrowed artwork by cartoonist Shawn Dickinson of a skeleton riding a motorcycle, and added a coffin behind it. The final image depicts a rider “ripping out” of his coffin for his last chance at living.
