His Future Hangs in the Balance
His past is a tale of profound addiction, DUI’s too numerous to remember, the Interlock Breathalyzer Program as a constant in his life, fortunes spent, and the slipping hold of control of his life. Here’s his story.
It started in his childhood. His parents split up, and when the dad came around, he was a negative. Mom, for her part, working and basically being a single parent of two boys, gave them whatever they wanted. In other words, all gas and no brakes.
At a young age he found himself running with the wrong crowd. Alcohol, drugs and party like hell because no one’s watching you and no one’s stopping you. Drinking and driving was common, and he was first caught at age 17. He was charged and received an automatic 90-day suspension of his licence.
That was the beginning. While I interviewed him for an hour and a half initially, from my notes I had assumed he’d had about three DUI charges. I wrote a draft of this article but had to go back to him for a number of clarifications. I asked how many times he’d been charged with DUI. His answer, “I don’t know. A lot”. It went on for well over a decade.
There would be a DUI charge, a mandatory 90-day suspension of his driver’s licence, and in most cases, a court date. He hired lawyers to represent him, and he avoided convictions every time except once when he pleaded guilty. He believes he has spent over $100,000 on legal fees.
There were other expenses like installations of the breathalyzers at his cost. He had to breathe into a breathalyzer every time he started his vehicle, and then every half hour or so after that to keep driving. When it was time to re-blow an alarm would go off in the vehicle and the horn would honk. He had limited time to pull over and re-blow to avoid a violation of the Interlock program. The breathalyzer had to be re-calibrated every 2 to 4 months. The cost of each re-calibration being around $400.
He had to go to mandated DUI programs, the cost of which varied from $1,100 to $20,000 for attendance at a mandated rehab facility. There were increased insurance costs for his vehicle which were upped from a $2,630 annual premium to a $ 7,000 annual premium. I asked how he could afford all these costs. His answer was that sometimes “it was tough”.
He worked in the field as a “pipeliner” often as a supervisor of up to 15 people. Because of his record he couldn’t drive a company vehicle as their insurance prohibited it. He had to take time off work for court cases, breathalyzer re-calibrations, and mandatory programs, some of which were hours away if he was working in remote locations.
Then there were all the times when his driver’s licence was suspended. He was prohibited from driving while awaiting his court dates. In one case the wait was a year. During those times he had to have someone drive him where he needed to go – friends, family, whomever, and there was always the temptation to drive anyway. He guesses he’s been without a driver’s licence for five years in total out of the roughly 13 years he’s been in this endless loop.
I asked him if he’d ever injured anybody and he said no, which is the one positive during all this.
The power of addiction was unrelenting despite all the costs, mandatory programs, insurance premiums, and “inconveniences”. In the beginning, it was excessive drinking and drugs, but it moved on to a decline in morals, a decline in caring about anything other than the need for a drink or another hit.
Finally, about a year ago he touched bottom. A light went on and he realized how much of his life he had lost, and how much his morals had deteriorated. It’s not like he wasn’t aware of that all along, but he was in that lifestyle and the pull of the addiction won out every time. He knows if he ever started drinking again, he would almost surely have to go back to the bottom before turning it around once more.
Today he’s trying hard to forge a different path. He is enrolled in the 12-Step Program, has been sober for a year, is taking courses to learn new skills, and wants to get his story out so that people are aware of how a progressive downfall from alcohol and drug addiction happens. He’ll be in the Interlock/breathalyzer program for another four years. His fight for his future is on, and I sincerely wish him well.
Dave Schroeder – HCRCWA Board Member
