Drunk Driving

I realized that after two and a half years of sobriety and blogging about sobriety I had not spoken whatsoever of any episodes of drunk driving.

The reason?  I'm so bloomin' ashamed of my own behavior, I can't even anonymously report any incident.

Which is a testament to the tremendous loads of guilt I've let sit on my chest for years, how badly they made me feel, and how much I want to avoid--simply obliterate more likely--the memories.

But the truth, naturally, is that I, like you, if you are an raging binge drinker/alcoholic like me, and live mostly anywhere in America where bars are only accessible via auto, have driven drunk, quite a few times.

My general rule was not to do so, mind you.

It's never like I set out to drive drunk.  Who does?

Drunk driving is a behavior like domestic violence.  I don't think there's a way to justify it, and I don't think those who perpetuate it begin their days saying that they plan on committing an act of intrinsic evil.

But the formula for occurrence is easy.  You know a few friends.  Friends who like to drink.  You live in a Midwestern state, for instance   Your friends live outside of the city.  Not too far, but far enough that taking your car is a normal way to arrive to the event.

You arrive at event.  Set strict limit for alcohol consumption.  You overindulge.  You wait out the overindulgence.  But then again, how long does it take to get 1 drink out of your system?  1 hour, 2? How many hours can one sit there, letting one's liver clean out the booze?

And what if the over indulgence was 4 beers worth.

And what's the legal limit anyway?  Isn't it at least 4 beers?  Isn't it at least .08?  Sometimes .10?  Isn't that 5?

Isn't it justifiable that having 7 and waiting 2 hours is okay?

Well, these are hard calculations to make.  How much food have you had?  How much weight?

And that's only the situation where I ended up driving drunk incidentally, whereas I was not drunk enough to black out or be totally out of my skin, so I drove "Carefully," whatever the fuck that means.

There are other situations.  Far worse situations.  Situations where holding the wheel itself is a chore.  Where judging the distance to a stop light is a journey in itself.  Where the eyeball doesn't want to constrict and all lights turn into big blurs.  Where sliding happens.  Where worse happens.

Thanks God nothing worse ever happened to me.  I can count those bad times on one hand.  I'm relatively young.  But I was lucky.  And I know people who were not so lucky.  And their entire lives changed, not to mention people's lives they hit.  Not to mention all sorts of other vile shit that I can't even get into here without feeling an excessive need to vomit.