A few years ago, I was in the backseat of a stranger’s car getting a ride to therapy. Thankfully, my insurance provides free rides to and from medical, dental, and behavioral health appointments. This service has been a lifesaver following my second DUI and the suspension of my driver’s license on October 5, 2015.
The woman driving said I looked like a capable young lady and intrusively asked about my driving situation. Embarrassed to tell the truth, I told her I had one DUI instead of two. Her response was:
“I can understand getting one DUI, honey. People make mistakes.
But more than one? You gotta be plain stupid.
How do those people not learn their lesson the first time around?”
I froze and said nothing. We rode in awkward silence until we reached our destination. Naturally, I cried to my therapist for the entire hour-long session. There I was, plain stupid. How did I not learn my lesson the first time around?
Tomorrow I have a hearing with the Secretary of State to determine the potential reinstatement of my driver’s license. It has been eight years, five months, and twenty-nine days since I was arrested and lost my license. It has been 3,103 days of walking to work, relying on others for transportation, and living with the soul-crushing shame of being a repeat offender.
When I look back on my life during the months leading up to October 5, 2015, all I see is pain. I see a 27-year-old girl whose life looked good on paper but was silently dying behind closed doors. My alcohol addiction had reached the point of physical dependency. Even though I knew I needed to stop, I couldn’t do so without becoming violently ill.
In the fall of 2015, I moved back onto Saginaw Valley State University’s campus to begin my final year of the bachelor-level social work program. I couldn’t even make it through the first day without drinking in class, so I dropped out and checked myself into rehab instead of finishing my degree.
On September 10, 2015, I entered a 21-day, Twelve-step-based inpatient rehab facility in my hometown. Unfortunately, the help available to those with Medicaid-based insurance is not gentle, holistic, trauma-informed, or evidence-based. The help available reiterates the message that addicts are plain stupid, powerless, and defective. According to the help available, if I wanted to get better, I had to absorb a harmful label, hide away in church basements, and claim I was the problem.
I was discharged on October 1, 2015, and drank that night. Five days later, on October 5, I was arrested for my second DUI while driving home from an AA meeting that I have no memory of attending. I thought I did the right thing by voluntarily checking myself into rehab. As it turns out, creating a life I don’t want to escape from requires more than just three weeks of half-assing my way through a program whose messages did not resonate.
Things continued to get worse after my arrest. My name and mugshot were printed in the criminal section of my local newspaper for everyone to see, and I used bulimia to cope. Instead of jail, I was sent away to rehab for another seven months, followed by three years of probation. In my experience, the criminal justice system did not practice the compassionate curiosity needed to heal the underlying traumas that caused my addiction. In my experience, there was only humiliation, chastisement, and extreme financial exploitation. Instead of getting better, my trauma compounded. Instead of getting better, I, too, started to believe that I was just plain stupid.
Our society, as a whole, believes that repeat offenders are somehow lacking intelligence. We believe the harsher the punishment, the better the outcome while treating degenerate addicts like me. We believe addiction is a choice when it most definitely is not. The criminal justice system believes that dehumanization is, somehow, the first step toward healing.
Eight years, 5 months, and twenty-nine days ago my reality was turned upside down. Navigating the world with a criminal record and no driver’s license changed the entire trajectory of my life. My dreams of finishing school, starting a career, and being a financially stable adult were crushed. I’ve had to grieve the life I thought I was supposed to have over and over again.
If I could go back in time and have another conversation with the lady who drove me to therapy years ago, I would tell her that repeat offenders are not plain stupid. Repeat offenders, like me, have unresolved pain and trauma that is met with societal exile. We are human beings that are systematically oppressed and need compassion, not handcuffs. We are wounded birds desperately crying out for help in a world that refuses to hear us.
Do I understand the seriousness of my offenses? Yes. Driving is a privilege. I am endlessly grateful that no one else was involved, injured, or killed.
But, I also firmly believe that all motor vehicles, including boats and snowmobiles, should have a breathalyzer that inhibits ignition without a .000 blood alcohol content. If alcohol is legal and cheaply available round the clock, then why is drinking and driving an option for anyone?
The most nerve-wracking part of my hearing tomorrow is that a stranger, whom I have never met before, gets to determine whether or not my recovery up to this point is “good enough” for driving privileges to be reinstated. I am worried that my judge also holds an unconscious bias that repeat offenders, like myself, are just plain stupid.
The biggest lesson I have learned over the past 3,103 days is that I am the opposite of stupid. If anything, figuring out a way to simultaneously create a life I don’t want to escape from while unpacking decades' worth of trauma while grieving the life I thought I was supposed to have while navigating an egregiously toxic, alcohol-obsessed society with a criminal record and no driver’s license makes me pretty fucking brilliant.
Caring for and respecting myself enough to change my relationship with alcohol after being ostracized is the ultimate victory.
No matter what happens tomorrow, I’ve already won.
Progress.
I agree Kelsi. You have won. I will be praying for you tonight and tomorrow. I'm so proud of the woman you've become
-Your first credible sobriety reference