The Blame Game 5/4/16

Who's to blame when someone is killed by a drunk driver?

What brings this on is that I've an old friend in Bloomington, Illinois who's kid - adult son, lives at home - is on his third DUI and from what I gather, he plead that out to three to five. No, not as in "three to five years in prison"! As in "three to five stern wags of the judge's finger". In last minute negotiations, the "angry look from the bailiff" and the "dolefully shook head of the court stenographer" were dropped as being violations of his 8th amendment right to no consequences.

And I'm glad. Well, glad-ish. No one wants to see someone they know, and someone dear to a friend, slammed into prison. Okay, I'm not really glad. Or rather, I'm glad my friend isn't sad. It's complicated. I love them all, but boy howdy is this a train wreck in which the actual crash is surely coming, but not quite yet arrived. It's a years long crashing. A crash in progress. And I fear that the final part of the in-progress crash will be later on, when someone finally dies.

You see, the "kid" still isn't going to meetings. And by "meetings", I mean, "AA meetings". Because he thinks he's not really an alcoholic. Though as I told the mother, "Yeah, there can be a lot of debate as to when and if a person is truly an alcoholic, but usually by the first or second DUI....yeah. Yeah, that's when we're getting pretty sure. The third, even sure-er."

I told the mother that two great gifts were received by his son. Gifts that should prompt him to gratefully go to meetings. Gifts that should not be took for granted.

The first gift, the one you're all thinking of, is that there will be no prison involved, though I'm sure most of you figured that by your third DUI, that was a given. Nope, it's not. Maybe if you live in Ferguson it is, but no, for most of you reading this, who know not to go with the Public Pretender, it is not. We were smart enough to choose the wight parents. Er, "right" parents.

The second gift is that no one died, though not for lack of trying. Three DUIs, three times no one has been killed. Remarkable. That's not because anyone did anything right, though. No, there's a lot blame to spread around in this blame game.

Fig. 1: The Future

We can blame the judges, and the District Attorneys, and our society as a whole that puts up with this, and how we all did our best to make sure that someone died by not taking action! And heck, it was my friend's nice new-ish Jetta! So it's on mom, eh? How dare she have those keys hanging on the hook!

We who are to blame have not quite succeeded at killing anyone yet. But we're all still trying. And trying really hard. The DAs are still trying to cut deals with those who's lawyers are competent enough to make the DA have to work for it, and heaven knows, no DA wants to work for it. That could mean their absurdly cherry-picked 99.99% conviction rate could drop to 99.97%. The judges are still up for not slamming down a "good kid" from a good home, especially not the kind of good homes that can afford appeals. And we of "society" lost interest in MADD back when they were crusading for yet another .01 drop in what we call the "legal limit", and oh, look, gay marriage! Kanye! Something shiny! Etc!

What of the parents, I hear it called out from the readership - aren't the parents especially to blame? Mom? Her Jetta? More so than the others of us in this blame game?

Actually, no. They aren't. Wait...what? The parents aren't to blame?

No, they are not to blame. It's time to get serious in this idiotic "blame game". You see, it's not my friend's job, or her husband's job, to keep the roads safe, or to see to it that our justice system works. Their job is to be there for their kid, and they're doing fine at that. Oh, they wrestle with what to do, sure, who woudn't? But I've heard of how they handle it, and I can't think of a thing to add or correct. And I'm a real buttinsky, so believe me, if there was some correcting to do, I'd be all about "just" letting them know! Yeah, I'm "that guy"!

Honestly, I am well aware of their two choices, and why they chose as they did. They had a choice between "tough love"/"rejecting" or "helping"/"enabling". Depending on which way a person believes, it makes a difference in how they phrase it. They chose "helping".

So you know, it's common among many, including myself at times, to advocate for not helping/enabling. To advocate the tough love/rejecting approach. But that's easy for me, I would only be advising that in general for a group of drunks I'd never be seeing. And it would work. Kind of. You see, there's a bit of an attrition rate to that method. Give 100 alcoholic and/or addict kids the boot to the curb. A given percent will take that as a wake up and go to meetings and get their lives in order at once, thanking their mothers and fathers for doing what needs to be done. They'll go to church and send their moms flowers on Mother's Day, too. And get a job at their Dad's company. Uh huh.

A percent will. Seriously. But it will be a very, VERY tiny percent! Kind of more like a percent of a percent.

The rest will go through a lot of hell, probably sink a lot deeper into addiction/alcoholism, while chanting the mantra of "they abandoned me, so I'll show them"! They'll be living their sad lives elsewhere, keeping grandkids from their folks, not being there for reunions unless to gripe at the stone-hearted parents, etc., drama and stupidity, etc. They'll still drink, they'll still drug, but as long as they still are clinging to a part time job or discount trailer, or even a couch at their pal's apartment, they'll be sure they're succeeding and that the folks were wrong. This is a much, much larger percent, but that percent will eventually hit bottom and then come around. Years later, they'll get around to thanking mom and dad. Well, maybe not the last part. But maybe there'll be thanks one day. With alcoholism and addiction, even the best case scenarios are usually lousy. And what you just read was pretty much the best case scenario. Yeah, loving an alcoholic sucks. Surprise.

And then there's the ones at the other end, past that middle, who will hit rock bottom - and die. Of an overdose. Or another DUI. Or a gang shooting. Or AIDS. Or from "coming at" a policeman. Or picking the wrong fight at a bar. But mostly from an overdose or DUI. Admittedly, that will also be a small percent, most will fall in the middle. But it's a percent. Some will literally die for having been booted out of the parent's home or the spouse's home. And there's not a parent or loved one out there who does not know that in their hearts. And fears it.

Given this, you can see why sitting at a laptop banging out an article, it's easy to just say, "Oh, yeah, tough love is the way to go, don't 'enable', just blah blah jargon, just psycho-babble babble and he'll be fine! He'll thank you later!" But I've pondered this many times, because the kid's mom is one of the few friends from my High School days that I still keep in touch with, and it's caused me to see how stupid such opinions can be. If it's your own kid, or someone you care for, you don't want to play percents. You'd rather keep helping and hoping, and at least then if he dies, it was not because you booted him out.

Of course, the sad part is that keeping him safe can lead to him eventually still doing the DUI thing again and again and dying eventually on the fourth or fifth attempt. And then the good and decent parents will blame themselves, too. This is why there are support groups for the families of addicts and alcoholics. It's because active alcoholics and addicts suck. Not in a cute way, where we say this modestly and self-deprecatingly. No, we really truly suck as people, as human beings. We are selfish and spoiled and entitled and indulge in our stupid sins while knowing that it puts parents and spouses and loved ones and others who care in a completely untenable position of being blamed either way. Blamed if they boot us out and we die. Blamed if they keep us enabled and we cause another to die, and/or die ourselves, too.

Only in recovery can we even begin to hope to grow some decency. And it's a long road.

Because, oh, yes, the kid in question, remember him? We've talked about society and it's faults and how they're to blame, and the courts and their faults and how they're to blame, and what if any blame to assign to the parents. But then there's the actual kid who isn't a kid, but a grown man. Who's still trying for a future innocent death. He's failed to kill anyone three times already, but I'm sure if he just keeps practicing, he'll succeed one day. And since he is sure he has no problem, I'm sure he'll keep practicing. I won't describe the game he's playing, but it was described to me, and I truly believe that what the parents are hoping is "sincere remorse" is really "I've bought another year or so of living a dozen times above my means while still relapsing at will."

Why do I say such a mean thing? Why am I so cynical as to believe that of him? Is that not uncharitable of me? No. I believe it because of scriptures! Holy moly, it says right in scriptures that "faith without works is meaningless"! That just saying you believe something without doing anything towards it is meaningless!

And so I'm supposed to believe that when an in-denial alcoholic with his third DUI notch on his drunken belt STILL won't go to a meeting that he's really depressed because he's feeling "remorse"?

Ha!

Not a funny "ha", but a "Yeah, right" contemptuous "ha". There's no remorse. Remorse is an emotion that the parents of his future victim might feel, and that I'm sure his own parents will feel, but it is sure nothing he's feeling now. He's too busy being self-indulgent and self-justifying. He's to busy being smooth, as in "smoothly ducking any and all real consequences". He's played Russian Roulette with the lives of every one in McLean County, not once but three times, and he's busy with faux self-pity, consoling himself as some kind of victim!

"But Dean! Isn't addiction a disease? Isn't alcoholism a disease? I mean, gee, Dean, you run a sober living home! The poor guy is a victim - of alcoholism, like you've been saying!"

You bet it's a disease, and if you show me the man getting help for that disease, even on Day One, I'll have nothing but sympathy for him, even if it's his 48th try! Just as I would anyone with Typhus. But you show me that same "man", who thinks he has some kind of right to cough in public without covering his mouth and spit in the town well, then my sympathy for that Typhoid sufferer - or drunk driver in denial - goes right out the window, lost in my sympathy for his victims of the past, victims of the present, and soon to be future victims!

My sympathy is not infinite, and if this is my failing, then I admit it openly and honestly. My sympathy is for the society that really has bent over backwards to try to aid the alcoholic and addict, by de-stigmatizing our disease and making it okay to admit to, and okay to get help with. My sympathy is for our courts who while they have their faults, are also over-burdened. My sympathy is for my old church youth group friend and her husband, who truly have no good options but can only pray and hope. And my sympathy is for the person killed on the fourth or fifth DUI, because mark my words, if there is no admission of guilt, then there will be a re-offending.

No one ever repented by denying that they ever sinned.

And like with Russian Roulette, you only get so many plays. Eventually that game ends.

In the blame game, we speak of many, but I blame above all the unrepentant drunk. The in-denial alcoholic. The lone person for which all others must then endure and deal with all the meaningless drama. It is that person who we should truly blame, not parents or courts or society or suns getting into eyes. In fact, I don't blame that drunk "above all", I blame him "only". I blame the person who is not doing a thing to solve the problem while everyone else but him is trying desperately to solve what only he can solve!

And by "thing to solve that problem", I do NOT mean pensiveness, reflection, depression, melancholy or promises as to new and bright futures. I mean "actual work". As in the minimal effort of "going to a meeting" for one hour per day!

Still think I'm too hard? It's known by many that I'm one of the easier Program Supervisor there is, as I'll take a person by the hand and go to any meeting with them, at any time. And give chances. "Chances" is plural. But the commonality of all who I have helped is that they have to admit that they need it. I've no help for the person who insists I believe that he's just fine, yet he can't provide for himself.

But past all that? How'd this get around to yet another person being blamed (me!) instead of the drunk driver? It's still not his parents fault, it's still not the judge's fault, it's still not the DA's fault, and it sure as heck is not my fault he drives drunk, no matter what a grumpy cynic I can sometimes be! It's one person's fault, and one person's fault only. Only one person is to blame, and if you're worried about me speaking tough, then at least admit that tough talk isn't going to get a small child spread over the pavement one day and scooped into a tiny coffin the next.

I'm speaking "tough" because I'm demonstrating why all should stop playing the blame game. It drags in too many unwilling players, none of whom really had any point in being there were it not for one single solitary person.

The drunk who won't go to a meeting to save his life.

The drunk who won't go to a meeting to save OUR lives.