DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE OR THIS COULD BE YOU

It was nearly 19 years ago that I was arrested for my first DUI and you'd think I've moved passed it, but I remember it so well.  

Too well.

There’s no saying how often I think about it, and I’ve never kept track of how many times the night has run across my mind, but the question I ask myself isn’t why did I do it, or what was I thinking? It’s not even if I learned a lesson.

The question I ask myself is - why do I think of that day, everyday?

It’s just a memory of my life. Another memory of things I’ve done like the memory of the day I tried to fake spit in Angie’s face but didn’t fake it fast enough before it landed on her cheek. She didn’t laugh at that. Like the nights that I would be forced to give Nick charlie-horses to get him to stop grinding his teeth in his sleep. I was in Junior High but we were little boys sharing a room and bed. He didn’t laugh at that either, actually he cried so that forced me to smother his mouth with a pillow to stop the crying noises before you or dad heard him, came up stairs to discover him crying, and finding out that I gave him a charlie-horse. He never laughed with me about that either.

What’s with the dry humor in our family?

By the way, if my junior high friends would have ever found out that I had to share a bed with my little brother, what do you think they would have done??? I would have been a laughing stock. Do you have any idea what that could have done to me? I could have been traumatized. I may have never recovered.

It doesn't really matter because I ended up being a laughing stock to most of them anyway.

 

I was grounded half of my kid life, mostly thanks to Nick, but you didn’t ground me after my first DUI. You didn’t have to. That arrest was the biggest but not the only stupid mistake I made that night.

Let me list all the mistakes I made that night:

1. I went to a party. Parties have always started great, but ended badly for me. However, never bad enough for me to stop going.
2. I left the party. I knew I was drunk, but in my defense, I heard a song from Stone Temple Pilots that reminded me of the girl that I had very recently broke up with, and just had to make a fourth meal run.
3. Driving down East 494 thinking I should try to hit 100mph. In my defense, I didn’t think I’d get caught.
4. Driving down East 494 and exceeding 100 mph. 106 actually. I have no defense for this.
5. Telling the cop that Taco Bell was still open. In my defense, I didn’t know it was 4am until he told me and I really was hungry.
6. Blowing a .16 in the breathalyzer. In my defense, I’ve heard if you put a penny in your mouth that will somehow neutralize your alcohol content and out of fear, I forgot to do that (can’t confirm it works).
7. Calling my aunt to pick me up only because she was married to the CG police captain (at the time) hoping he’d clear me from this so you and dad wouldn’t find out. In my defense, I thought he really would clear my name so that you and dad wouldn’t find out, so, in the moment, it seemed logical. 
8. Not calling dad to come pick me up. In my defense, I was scared.

 

That night was the change of direction in my drinking and thought process. After that night I tried over and over again, desperately, to prove to myself, you, dad, Toni, Angie, Nick and my friends that I could drink responsibly. I had very few successes and overall, failed miserably. Every time I failed I would become even more stubborn in my inability to prove you wrong and that was a huge hurdle for me. A hurdle I would never conquer.

 

The worst part was the very next day. 

I was hung-over, I woke up at Aunties house, you and dad still had no idea what happened, I was in the same clothes as the night before, I needed to brush my teeth and I was scared-to-death.

Eventually I did call you. Well, Auntie did, I didn't. She called you the next morning and broke the news then passed the phone to me. I didn’t want it, but took it. Dad came to pick me up, which would become a recurring theme. The part I remember the most, other than seeing those flashing red lights creep up behind me, and other than failing to stand on one leg while holding my other foot six inches off the ground, and other than feeling the hand-cuffs click shut, and other than being escorted into the booking room, and other than thinking I was in deep trouble, was Dad telling me that above all else he was disappointed that I felt I couldn’t come directly to him when I was in trouble. Those words have stuck with me my entire life. Those words were worse than any grounding you could have and should have dished-out. I’ll never get over how much I hurt him and how much I had disappointed him.

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed and it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve apologized and he’s forgiven me, it still stings. Looking into his watered eyes, watching him cry because I didn’t turn to him when I was in the biggest trouble of my life, was the punishment. How hard is that for any man to accept about his son?

Ya know, you spend years with your parents and your parents spend years with you trying to build trust with their children trying to provide security and protection so that if you’re ever in trouble you can turn to them for help. In that single moment when I could have done the very thing that you tirelessly prepared me for, I chose someone else.

Disappointing is poor describing word.

That memory will always stay with me. I learned more about Dad in those minutes than I had up until that point. In the next couple years our relationship would become different. “Don’t drink and drive,” wasn’t the lesson I learned that night. Being reassured that I truly can turn to, trust, and rely on my father was the lesson I learned that night. I still hang my hat on that every single day.

I promised myself that I would never get another DUI as long as I live, but on the off-chance that I did, he would be my guy. Only one of those promises did I ever follow through with.

I would get another DUI.