On the third Tuesday of every other month, I speak on a Victim Impact Panel to a room full of mostly strangers who received DUIIs. I talk about very personal things. I tell them that I am a recovering alcoholic; that I started drinking when I was 13; that I drank and drove hundreds of times but never got caught; that I and other members of my family behaved irresponsibly by drinking and driving; that our children learn by watching us; and that my 20-year-old nephew died in a car crash after drinking heavily and then getting behind the wheel of his car. It’s painful. I did it again tonight.
I don’t want to do it any more because my heart breaks every time I tell the story. I also don’t want to do it because I have to sit and listen to the dozens of other heartbreaking stories over and over again. Stories about parents who kill their children in car crashes after drinking. Stories about teenage boys who kill their girlfriends in car crashes after drinking. The one story I can hardly stand to hear any more is about the teenage girl who crashes into a small truck after drinking and kills a four-year-old girl and her mother, who is eight and a half months pregnant. My heart breaks for the family that was lost and for the girl who killed them. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live with that kind of guilt. I think I would want to die.
It’s been almost five years since Daniel died and I have been telling this story on the panel since shortly after his crash. I do it because I can’t stand the thought that his death was senseless. I want to believe that something good can come from it. We all have our coping mechanisms. This is mine. It is also my duty to help the alcoholic who still suffers.
Occasionally, someone in an AA meeting will tell me that he heard me speak on the panel and that it made a difference. Shortly after Daniel died, I wrote an editorial for the local paper telling our story. Tonight a young man came up to me after the panel and said he had read that article. That was more than four years ago and he remembered it. I don’t know that young man’s story but it seemed to me that Daniel had made an impression on him. People like him keep me going back even though I would really rather not.
I said that I tell my story to a room full of “mostly” strangers. There is always at least one person in the room that I know. Tonight it was a man from work. There are more than 300 employees and we do not work closely but we do know each other. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact throughout the panel. But afterwards, he hung back and showed me a chip. He’d engraved a date on it. 11.18.08. The date he is hoping will be the last day he ever drinks. I told him to go to meetings. I told him he could call me any time. He said he wants to change his life. One day at a time. It’s people like him who keep me going back, even though I would really rather not.
