Class 6 was short. Apparently, lightning will get you out of class early. Too bad I can’t arrange that every time we have class.
We had a ‘visitor’ in class. So, I solved the mystery of what happens when you miss a class…you just go to another one. I did wonder about that because they said if you get permission and skip the one class you’re allowed to miss, you have to schedule a make-up. Simple enough.
Still no breathalyzer (since the first class). I’m guessing we’ll take one more and it will be the last class, but I’m not sure about that since it’s going to be one-on-one evaluations.
We went over the portion of the workbook that’s about changing your patterns of behavior. Really, it’s about devising a plan about how you’ll react or what you’ll do when confronted with a certain situation. Honestly, I never thought to approach drinking like this. For example, you know you’re going to some upcoming social event where alcohol will be served. You plan ahead to have a ride or if you don’t, you don’t drink or have one and wait two hours before driving. Seems simple enough. For me, drinking has mostly been a casual thing. I don’t always plan to drink, so I don’t really think about planning out my time around it that much. However, now after a DUI, I have no choice but to live the rest of my life like this. Oh well.
This ‘positive talk’, as VASAP calls it, could be used for other important things in life. When I’m trying to justify a new pair of shoes, for example, I can rationalize whether or not it is a purchase that makes sense. I can have a plan in mind when I get to the store that I will not spend any money or buy one item and wait two hours to settle down before driving home or I can buy as many pairs as I like and just make sure I have a designated driver with a vehicle that can hold all my purchases. See? VASAP classes are incredibly useful!
On a more serious note, this past Memorial Day weekend I realized that I’m becoming paranoid. My husband and I stopped on the way home from a fair on Sunday to have dinner at one of our favorite wings places. We used to go there every Wednesday in the winters (they had trivia) to eat and drink beer. We’re good tippers and the staff got to know us. We haven’t been there since last fall, though, and the place is very different now- to us. We realized that all along we’d been taking some chances with my husband even having three beers while we sat there for four hours and then driving home. That’s the same now everywhere we go- we’re rethinking how we do things as a result of the DUI. It’s a good thing, but what made me feel uncomfortable was watching others. I’ve been having some of these feelings wherever we go and we see people drinking in excess, but for some reason, it hit me harder on Sunday. Maybe it was the holiday, I don’t know. But there was a group of people at the corner of the bar that had been there for some time and they started doing shots. This never really bothered me so much before, but it does now. It got me thinking about all the people that go out and drink and think nothing of driving home. There’s a part of me that wants to pull them aside and tell them my story and the others I’ve heard because each one of them is at risk for a DUI and it’s just not worth it (especially when they’re drinking Yagermeister..yuck). The other part of me is afraid of them now. I know they’re on the road every day/night and I get worried one of them will cause me to have an accident. I was always a pain in the ass when my husband drives, but I’m worse now. I beg him to stay three full car lengths from any vehicle just in case and if I see someone swerve- even just a little- I ask him to get away from them immediately. All this talk about alcohol and driving has made me paranoid for myself as well as others because it’s hard to forget what I’ve learned in these classes and in AA. I guess that’s a good thing, but at the same time, it makes me not want to drive much especially after a certain hour on the weekends. But no matter what care you take, you can’t control some jackass on the road that’s three sheets to the wind. The lady at the MADD Victim Impact Panel was hit in the middle of the day out of nowhere by someone that was drunk and doing various other illegal drugs and she didn’t see it coming. That scares the bejesus out of me now. I always was afraid, but it’s more pronounced now. When I started thinking about it Sunday, I realized there were probably even more of these people on the road as a result of the holiday. Scary.
It still doesn’t make me feel alcohol needs to be removed entirely from my life or others, but it does make me think twice about..okay, more than twice.
Life After a DUI 