I Used to Drive Drunk

Today, with a tragedy that has hit my hometown again, someone young, a mom, under the influence, made a decision that will affect her life forever. When she made the initial choice to get behind the wheel and drive, her first thought was not that she would kill her kid, nor hurt anyone else.

You tell yourself, I’ve done it before! I’ll make it again!

But every time you get behind the wheel, it is a roll of the dice, a bet, a gamble.

One second too late… one wrong turn… and your future is gone. That drink, that high, that I got this, it could end in tragedy.

There’s something I need to admit. Something I’m not proud of. Something that still makes my stomach drop when I think about it. I used to drive drunk. Not once. Not twice. BUT Countless times. I have told myself the same lie so many others do. I’ve done it before. I’ll make it home. I always do. I would always forget about my first drunk driving, or my uncle who was killed in a head-on drunk driving accident. I forgot about the tragic stories of people I knew who died while under the influence and driving. I would also forget about a woman that I grew up around who had killed someone while drinking and driving, and was in prison serving her time, missing her children grow up. The truth is, there are no limits when you’re drunk behind the wheel. Your judgment is gone, and your choices can change lives in a split second. We were not thinking clearly. We would never, on a good sober day, say we would choose to get behind the wheel to set out to hurt someone or ourselves. This is the tragedy of our addiction, the trail of actions we took under the influence we have to face when we wake up sober.

I would like whoever reads this to take a moment, close your eyes, and think if there is one time you got behind the wheel and drove while you were drunk, high, tripping, on pain pills, too tired to drive, maybe texting and driving, getting something out of the back, and crossed the center line. Whatever the reason is, that we were that unsafe driver at that time, it could have been us waking up to the tragedy.

Now, with time in sobriety, I can see clearly just how dangerous, reckless, and selfish those choices were. I risked my own life. I risked the lives of strangers. And sometimes… I even had people I loved in the car. Today, I’m grateful not because I ever drove drunk, but because by the grace of God, no one was killed. It breaks my heart to think about what could have happened. Sobriety gave me the clarity to see how dangerous I had been living.

I share this because I want you to understand it’s not worth it. I want to share that we do recover. To make people aware of the struggles that we face within our community.

I hope reading this gives you the clarity to never make that choice in the first place. I hope you can find compassion for the one who struggles with the life choice made under the influence, and now is sitting in jail and facing this alone.