<p>If you suspect your son is drinking and driving, you have to do whatever is in your power to prevent it. The tricky part is that there isn’t a lot you can do to stop it. Since you are the only person in this thread who knows your son’s level of maturity and his willingness to be open to your suggestions/thoughts/fears/threats, only you can really know how he will react or if he will benefit from any form of assistance. The important thing to remember is that drinking under the influence effects more than material things or even your own loved one. Other people’s lives could be changed due to the actions of your son if he really is drinking.</p>
<p>Driving under the influence does have serious consequences. However, even when shown statistics and true life tragedies involving dead drunk drivers, it has been my observation that mostly people who already wouldn’t drink and drive get the message. The people who need to hear this message the most typically do not get it and are still under the impression that nothing bad can or will happen to THEM.</p>
<p>I think the best way to reach those people are who are unaffected by stories of drunk drivers who hurt or kill themselves is to instead show them stories of the innocent who have been hurt BY drunk drivers.</p>
<p>I am not trying to hijack this thread with my own experiences but I do have a story to tell. I’ve probably told it before but I’m too lazy to look up past threads. My story won’t have the same punch as it would if you knew first hand, of course, but it’s still a story worth telling in any case.</p>
<p>When my brother was 18 he was driving home from work on a secluded 4 lane street with a speed limit of 40mph. He was in the left lane and a car was driving right next to him to his right, keeping pace with him. Suddenly, a light pick-up who was in its left lane rounded a turn going too fast and he wasn’t showing signs of slowing. Witnesses of the accident say that the truck just drifted over the double yellow line into my brother’s lane. My B tried to swerve to avoid the collision but he could not because of the car that was next to him. He would have been pinned but the car to my brother’s right barely escaped, but was untouched. My brother, however, wasn’t so lucky. Because my brother tried to brake instead of ramming into the car to his right, he was hit head-on and had to be airlifted to a hospital. Thankfully, he was hit outside an oil refinery so refinery paramedics arrived very shortly. But he went 7 minutes without oxygen to his brain. He had massive internal bleeding, ruptures and tears of his small and large intestines, a punctured lung, and extreme brain trauma. He is susceptible to pneumonia (which has a higher likelihood of killing him) and manages to catch bronchitis a few times a year. He is still unable to talk and walk as the parts of his brain controlling motor function has been injured so badly. He also suffers from epilepsy now, he has at least one Grand Mal seizure every week or two, depending on certain factors. He is 28 in 4 days and while my brother has made improvements, he has regained little motor function.</p>
<p>Now to the meat and potatoes of the story. The driver of the truck who hit my brother, who I will call J, walked away from the crash with injuries, while not “minor,” are in nowhere near the same league as what happened to my brother. J had a concussion, a few broken ribs, and a bruised heart. He is lucky his heart was not punctured by a rib. The truck he was driving was owned by the company he worked for. How could someone just drift over the line without noticing? Especially going so fast? Well, he was spotted in a bar earlier that day (while on the clock at that) by two witnesses, and he had 7 open beer cans in said company vehicle. He is a known crystal-meth user/addict and the drug dealer of choice for the town in which he still lives in. After the crash, my family was told that his blood-alcohol level was inconclusive. I have no idea how this is possible. Then, after a couple of days, my family was told that J admitted to being under the influence of drugs but would not admit to drinking alcohol prior to the accident. He was not arrested. When my mother called to complain that J was not arrested, the police told my mother that J was not arrested because the paperwork (indicating that J had used drugs) was lost or never filed and by then it was too late to retest him. So after J recovered from his injuries, he lost his DL for a very brief time for reckless driving but he still goes on with his life. I do not know how J feels about what he did but he never apologized.</p>
<p>Again, I am not trying to hijack the thread or turn this into a woe-is-me, tragedy of the day type of post. I just feel that there is a chance that telling these stories can help and if I have the chance to make a supposed drunk driver stop and reflect, even briefly, then it’s worth it. I’m also not trying to talk down to you as if you aren’t familiar with the consequences of drinking and driving. My story is the only thing I can offer you because I don’t know your son well enough to judge. But I don’t think he should be driving due to his record, even if he isn’t drinking. I’m sorry for writing a book on your thread but I feel that in this situation, more detail is better in order to establish an understanding.</p>
<p>I wish you and your son the best.</p>