Charged with Drink Driving

[PurpleDaisy2114]

Hi all- I should have joined this thread much sooner. I have been charged. With drink driving and have a pending court date. I can't believe it has taken this to make me wake up to my behaviour. The alcohol consumption has been increasing last few months and whenever I'm out I'm always the most drunk, I don't know when to stop.
I like how alcohol makes me feel, the way it turns off all the voices and thoughts and stops me being so awkward and self conscious. I definitely self- medicate but after spending a night in a police cell the stark reality has really hit me. I could have killed somebody. What was I thinking.
I'm not sure how to start to piece things back together. I have a family- dh and 2 children.

You clearly have other issues to deal with. Your drinking is just masking what the real problem is.

My colleague found out about her son's drink driving conviction when another colleague saw it in the paper. Expect it to be published

I want to control it.

You’re an alcoholic, you can’t control it. That’s the scary thing here. That being caught drink driving and going to court isn’t your rock bottom.

What will be your rock bottom? The loss of you marriage? Your kids?

If you could control it, you wouldn't have been drink driving in the first place.

i’m five and a half years sober, one day at a a time. i was a rock-bottom mouthwash drinking alcoholic and my life was out of control.

i lost my job, for turning up drunk. my child left to live with their father. my husband divorced me.i very, very nearly died.

just in case you think that made it easy to quit, let me tell you some more. i have borderline personality disorder, caused by prolonged neglect and abuse, having been raised by alcoholics. i also have major depression, anxiety, complex PTSD, OCD and am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

it took me a long time to decide where my rock bottom was. i lost everything, i had some awful injuries from drunken falls. i drove drunk more than once, and i am grateful every day that my selfish, thoughtless pity party might have injured or killed someone.

i can tell you all this without shame, because i faced up to what i am. i’m an alcoholic. i have hideous regrets, but that doesn’t mean i can try to hide the unsavoury parts of my drinking. it’s the hardest lessons that take the longest to learn.

if you’ve read all this, OP, I would respectfully suggest that if i can quit, anyone can. you can. but only you can decide to knuckle down and face yourself.

i live with chronic pain from arthritis, i live with mental illness, i’ve just split from my partner of five years (because of his drinking, with hideous irony) and i am waiting to see if i have thyroid cancer. i haven’t picked a drink up today, though.

my worst day sober is still better than my best day drunk. sobriety is hard and you need to learn to live with the nerves on the outside of yourself, exposed to the world without the fuzzy soothe of getting pissed every night.

you need to face yourself, and find out why you don’t think you’re worth more than a life controlled by alcohol.

i did it. you can too, anyone can. AA saved my life. it doesn’t click with everyone, but there will be something, somewhere that will. BUT only you can decide to change.

i wish you well, OP, and i hope you can find enough love for yourself to make this change.

augh, no edit! i’m grateful that my selfish, thoughtless pity party did not kill or injure anyone.

what a fucking typo. sorry. christ.

You don't need a solicitor for drink driving if you have already admitted it. The court day is nearly all hanging around, you are given a time to turn up for & you just have to sit until you are called in to court, they normally bring you in during the case before, you then stand in the dock, listen to the charges being read, enter your plea, the magistrate sums the case up, asks you if you have anything to say & then gives your sentence, blowing 59 when the limit is 35, I would expect you to get a 12 month ban & a fine. Make sure you take your driving licence to court with you. If the case is straightforward, you will be out of court in under 20 minutes.

I want to control it.

You are in denial. It controls you

I'm nearly 3 years sober, I wasnt a daily drinker but a binge drinker, losing my partner to alcoholism made me decide to stop. I don't miss it at all now, it was hard at first but gets easier every day. It wasnt me who got caught drink driving, it was my late partner.

@exWifebeginsAgainat46

exWifebeginsAgainat46

OP, you are talking as a classic alcoholic.

It has nothing to do with needing a drink at 7am or going without for 48 hours.

You are using alcohol to change the way you feel about yourself.

You cannot learn to control your intake if your reason for drinking is to change how you feel.

I sincerely hope you are able to accept that you're an alcoholic and start going to AA meetings or a rehab centre.

OP please listen to @exWifebeginsAgainat46

I think I'm the poster referred to above as nearly dying from liver disease.

AA also saved my life. Because people who drink like you and me are alcoholics.

Do go to a meeting, if only to realise that you are not alone as to why you drink, the effect is has and why you cannot stop.

It is a disease. Quite a lot of us have it. It wants you dead. That little or loud voice telling you that you can't live without it is the disease talking.

The world health organisation defines it as a disease. Repeated destructive behaviour. Progressive. If untreated ends in death.

And it is progressive. Many in AA lost their licences and still drunk. Then they lost their jobs, family, health.

The only cure for alcoholism is not drinking. It's the disease that tells you you haven't got it.

You don't drink like a normal person, you drink like an addict. If you go to AA you will meet people who have the same illness who understand and will never judge you, no matter how bad it gets.

Earlier this year I was in ICU for two and a half weeks because of my drinking. I got out and drunk again, so I know exactly what it's like to have non alcoholic people in total disbelief and judgement that I could continue to do the thing that was so clearly killing me and destroying the lives of everyone around me.

In AA all anyone said was we are glad you are here. You are in the right place, many gave me their numbers and offered to drive me to meetings.

All alcoholics want to control it and drink like normal people. We can't. That's what makes us alcoholics.

I no longer drink, I go to AA meetings and I talk honestly to other alcoholics. You'll be amazed at how honest we are as to why we drank and where it lead. Our stories are remarkable for the similarities not the differences.

You are feeling defensive and judged on this thread. That's because you are asking non alcoholics for advice.

Please give AA a go. Life sober is so much better. I'd never have believed I'd be spouting that and meaning it. It's true though.

There is help and it's people just like you who want to help people like you and I get and stay sober and enjoy life, whatever shit it throws at us without picking up a drink.

One day at a time. Who'd have thought it (not me), but it works.

To everyone reading this : Just don’t drink and drive at all. Even the smallest amount of alcohol can impair judgement and reduce reaction rates. OP I suspect that you will get a longer ban than 12 months and as you work for the civil service you will more than likely loose your job.

@Faifaye you'll probably get a response if you start your own thread

Thank you I don't no how to though lol

I am not judging you OP. I'm the child of an alcoholic and the sibling of two more. It's a horrible thing to suffer with

I don’t think you feel that guilty tbh, charged with drink driving, DH hides the drink yet within a few days your both drinking wine?!?
This is going to go public, find some remorse and get help before everything goes down the tubes.

Thank you for all that comments, especially to those of you that have talked so candidly about your own experiences. I've been putting one of the kids to bed hence not replying/acknowledging sooner. I think I will leave it here however- I know what O need to do. Thanks again

On 5th August, I held the head of a 22 year old whilst my next door neighbour gave him CPR. He died as the result of drink driving. Unsure of who was driving as they were both thrown about, but both were drinking.
I had his head between my hands and watched his bright blue fixed eyes, tongue already blue and contorted. I had his blood on my hands. Diesel on my clothes.

This probably wasn't the first time you've drunk driven and if you continue to drink it won't be your last either.

Don't be that 22 year old.
Don't do that to the people who will try and help you, and don't do it to your family.
Get the help you need and get rid of the booze.

I genuinely wish you the best of luck.

I'll be honest, you must quit drinking completely. It's clear you cannot control your alcohol intake. Don't be ashamed, instead realise that only you can solve your problem and it's solution is abstinence. If you own up to your drink driving, take the punishment and quit drinking then you can hold your head up high, we all make mistakes and alcohol for some people is highly addictive. Quit before it completely ruins your life, my friend is a widow thanks to alcohol, her kids fatherless ... heed that tale

If you don't want to go to AA, find your local drug & alcohol service, they don't judge & will point you in the right direction to stopping drinking. They can allocate you a worker who you can see regularly as well as group therapy, activities to get you something else to think about. It is possible to lead a good life without alcohol, it takes time & is sometimes very hard, but gets easier every day you don't drink.

Sadly she hasn’t hit her rock bottom yet.