I can’t believe somebody trolled you for that…and because they didn’t read it carefully!! Morons….

Amazing, powerful story. People may say you’re brave for telling it, but I find the ability to stick to the commitment of no alcohol and take responsibility for your bad judgement is the more impressive act. I also am curious, what was the story of you driving that night? Was this why you took that medication that interfered with breastfeeding? Was that medication ordered by the court?

I would point out it’s also an act of good parenting to take responsibility for your actions.

You have my word, m’lady. Absolutely.

While I do commend you for sharing your story, I don’t understand the “hugs” you’re getting from other commenters. You know drinking and driving is wrong and a horrible thing to do, but you did it anyway, putting your own life and, more importantly, the lives of every other person on the road in danger. And while I’m sure other people have been there and can empathize, that doesn’t make it any better. And while it may have been an “unfortunate circumstance” it was your own damn fault.

I agree with jonniker regarding the giant hairy balls.

Oh, you are lucky, lucky, lucky that JB supported you through this. Obviously, he loved you an unbelievable amount and had a lot of hope for you.

Compared to my ex-husband’s DUI experience in Kentucky in 2002 (in which he was in a single-car accident), Washington DOES NOT FUCK AROUND. He spent a few hours in the drunk tank, paid a smallish fine and had to go to classes before getting his license reinstated. Last I heard he still had not completed the classes and so did not have his license back. No jail time, no victims’ panel, no community service, no interlock.

On the other hand, you learned a lesson. He did not.

Wow. That must have really hurt to write. I have so much respect for you, having gone through that and come out the other side having learned a lesson. Just, wow. Thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you.

This will help someone. Probably already has.

Wow – powerful post! I have to admire a person who will take responsibility for her actions! Thanks for sharing this low point in your life with all of us – very brave.

I learned in college that my tolerance for alcohol is VERY low (2 drinks will make me puke), so have thankfully never driven drunk. I hope you’re able to be honest with Riley when he’s old enough to understand so he can learn from your mistakes. Like Ozzy Osbourne’s kids. Oh, wait…

Bummer. I have some alcohol problems too. On Friday I went over to my friends house to help him get ready for a big ass cookout he was hosting on Saturday. I drank heavily, long into the night. I guess I downed a twelve pack, a pint of Jack, and five or six Jager bombs. Well I woke up late and rushed out the door to try and make it to my brothers high school graduation. Apparently I was still buzzing, because after I got pulled for speeding, I blew a 0.12 BAC. So I got arrested, and processed through the jail, and lost my liscence, and am now facing a DWI charge. I can’t take the bus from where I live. We don’t have a public transportation service in my town. I now have to spend at least the next month driving with no ID. So yeah Linda, I feel your pain on this issue. Hell, booze was the reason I got a felony charge in ’03. I had been doing really well at staying out of trouble and not breaking very many laws since then, but it looks like I’ve got a whole lot of trouble and law breakage to deal with in my near future. I do sort of feel like a piece of shit now. Sometimes I wish I was the sort of person who could just be normal and average and bang out a marriage and make some sort of suburban life without always turning my life into a steaming pile of shit. But as long as I can remember, right when I think things are turning around for me, something new happens and everything falls apart. It’s really depressing, but fuck it. I’ll do the best I can, and just expect to never see any results in my life. Not everybody is meant to have a perfect life.

@ Mary,

I think the point of her posting this was to, you know, OWN IT. Duh.

Oria,
Um, yeah, I was directing my comment at the other commenters who were giving her “hugs” and saying it was an “unfortunate circumstance”. Hugs for what? I commend Sundry for “owning it” but I don’t think there’s any reason to give “hugs” for something she put on herself.

Thank you for the post, it was honest, and painful to read. I hope you find the peace you seek.

Wooo, stupid trolls.

I’ve driven when I shouldn’t have, and I could have written this post except that I got lucky and made it home without incident. Well I could have had similar experiences and then written much less coherently about it, but hopefully you get my point. No stones are going to be thrown by this monkey.

I’m glad it was only an arrest and sorry that it happened at all. Good for you for having the guts to put it out there.

1. I admit I did not read everyone else’s comment.
2. You are very brave for sharing.
3. You are very strong for growing as you have.
4. I was shocked by your story since the people I have know in Virginia who have had one or more DUIs didn’t have an experience nearly as punishing as yours. That is sad, since they continue to make bad decisions, and your experience caused you to change.

Hearing this from someone like you means so much more than hearing it from a phony celebrity spokesperson or media “public service” forum. You are one of my heroes.

Mary,
I think people are hugging her because it took her guts to own it while others troll it.

Thank you for sharing.

I am sending your entry to my mom, Linda. She needs to read it.

You are taking something bad and turning it into something good.

I know Internet hugs don’t mean a lot, but if I were there I would give you a great big one.

Hugs!

I’mnot sure what Mary’s point was, other than to piss all over your message and the response you’re getting. Two assmonkeys out of all these responses isn’t too bad.

Throw me into the hugs category, because I don’t believe at any point have you minimized your responsibility or the seriousness of your actions. Criticisms from people who can’t even attach an email address or URL to their “names” probably don’t carry a great deal of credibility in a discussion about personal responsibility.

Good post, Linda. This is what blogging is about when it is at its best.

Dear. God.

You are brave and honestly, pretty selfless for doing this. You had no obligation but your own goodwill. Good for you, and of course thank you for sharing.

I can’t imagine the humiliation you endured in that cell, being 7 months pregnant. Again – Dear. God.

Talk about character building. Quite literally, and very, very obviously, Linda.

A good mother has both balls of steel and experience to share, right?

Sundry.

You are a fucking awesome woman. The hardest thing to do is face what you’ve done in the past and then publically acknowledge it. My hat is off to you. I can’t tell you how incredibly proud and happy for you just reading this makes me.

I ask this without an ounce of sarcasm – did it help to write about this? I’ve been thinking about doing a similar entry and have been too chicken.

And it was a powerful post and hopefully sent a message to those who might need it. I myself have only been lucky that I didn’t go through the same exact thing or worse. Now I’m really careful.

I also agree with another commenter that the real kudos go to you for being strong against your addiction. I wish I had that kind of resolve so I’ll not only give you a hug I’ll thrown in a playful slap on the ass!

Linda, I’m sorry you got one or two judgmental commenters. I am really glad you posted this. It’s extremely valuable. I respect you not only for posting but also for describing the ordeal in explicit, riveting detail.

Thank you, Sundry. You did good. I am not a e-hugger, but were I, I would totally throw some brackets your way.

Uh, I’m still allowed to make fun of Paris Hilton, though, right?

That was very cool of you to write this all out and admit all that. It is hard for most people to admit the hard parts of their lives to just immediate friends much less the internet at large. Thanks for sharing your experiences and what you learned from them. I really hope it helps others! I think it helps all your readers, to some extent, though, because these types of entries remind us all that it’s okay to let go of secrets, to put stuff out there, because afterwards not only will everyone still like you, but they’ll respect you all the more for being honest with yourself and others, honest enough to face experiences head on, instead of forever trying to sweep them under the rug. And that’s a really awesome skill to have in life.

Mary: she did it when she knew it was wrong because she has a disease called alcoholism. Part of alcoholism is denial of even having a problem. I know- my mother is an alcoholic. She will tell you that she’s not.

Sundry is now a recovering alcoholic, which is why she’s telling all of us this. A recovering alcoholic recognizes their mistakes. Most of them try to help the rest of us that they see making those same mistakes, like Sundry.

She deserves praise because she’s turning something bad into something good. You ever hear of a motivational speaker?

Educate yourself on the issue before offering comment. Cause otherwise, you just end up looking like an ass. And at least give us an email address to contact you instead of using Sundry’s comments- cause otherwise you look like a coward.

You want to take my comments up with me, my email address is listed. I won’t look for any response from you here.

This makes me even more glad that the other night, when I was at a friend’s house, I refused to partake in ANY alcohol. Not even a sip. Instead, I got home safetly and still had a fun night.
I just wish I could get my best friend to do the same..

This was a very brave post. I admire your conviction in writing it and hoped it has helped the healing process.

I’ve noticed some of the other comments are surprised with how severe DUI sentencing is. A good friend of my boyfriend’s recently got pulled over a DUI – a mere 2 blocks from home. He’s currently without a license and sober. He didn’t think it was that big of a deal at first – until he started finding out all the reprecussions of drinking and driving in the state of Washington. Washington has the toughest DUI laws in the country – and as of July 1, anyone who is charged with 3 DUI’s in a ten year span automatically gets served with a felony.

Wow…thanks for sharing that.

Wow, it really takes a lot of guts to open up to us like that. Good for you!
It is wonderful that you are recovered too.
You get a big cyber hug from me too!

*at a loss for words*

All I can say is that I’m sorry that you had to go through that, that your family had to go through that….It must have been so difficult.

I am happy that you chose to change and chose to share this with us. Thank you, thank you and thank you.

You are SO brave that it sometimes boggles my mind.

Thanks for sharing that…I hope theres not too many reminders around now of what happened, because you deserve to live in the present and not the past.

This is the main reason why I keep coming back to your blog, day after day, sometimes checking it multiple times a day to see if you’ve updated.

You are real, and raw and brutally honest, and I admire you for that. I know this post probably took a lot of courage to write, and I appreciate you for that. Kind of hard to wrap my head around since I only know ‘you’ through what you write, but I relate to you in so many ways it’s not even funny.

Thank you so much for sharing this – you’ve made me think twice about some of the choices I have made in my life, and have affected some choices I will make in the future. And seriously, I mean it, thank you.

You get hugs from me, girl. Everyone makes mistakes. Big and small. What’s important is that you learned from it and you are talking to others about it in an effort to share your knowledge. Thank God you didn’t hurt yourself or someone else that night…and you have so many wonderful things in your life now that you could have lost. I deeply understand your need to talk about it.

For the negative comments (thankfully not many), I think everyone needs love and affection – even those who have made huge mistakes. So our Sundry hit rock bottom and she is brave enough to throw it out there for everyone to see. Personally I think giving her a hand and helping her up is vasting more productive than sh#ting all over her. Not one of us is perfect.

Thanks for sharing, Linda. I had an unfortunate experience back in 2003 that’s made me overly paranoid about drunk driving laws…my husband and I had met up for dinner/drinks with family. We drove separately, and when we left, I questioned his ability to drive, but he assured me he was fine. I definitely should have known better–when you know someone that well, you can tell when they’ve crossed the line and lack adequate judgment (not to remove any of the blame from him, but I realize that I was at fault, too). Stupidly, however, I let him get into his own car, and he was following me home when he got pulled over for a broken tail light. The officer smelled alcohol on his breath, and the rest is history.

In the state we lived in then, the consequences of a DUI arrest are much less serious, but it was still no walk in the park. He didn’t spend any time in jail–they booked him at the hospital they took him to to perform the blood test (no breathalyzer, for some reason). I drove him home from there, and he had a court appearance several months later, at which he lost his license for 30 days, was ordered to take a class, and had to pay well over a thousand dollars (which we certainly didn’t have at the time) in fines. Amazingly, his insurance was never affected (though we moved to an area where we no longer drive before it was up for renewal that year–I think it would have been when they re-evaluated him). The worst part, however, was the shame and embarrassment. We were too humiliated to tell any of our friends and family, and those who found out were incredibly disappointed in both of us.

All this to say that a momentary lapse in judgment (both of the sober person and the one who might just be one sip over the legal limit) can affect your life forever, even if the consequences aren’t as sever as Linda’s.

I can’t say this any better than a lot of the previous commenters have… You are totally remarkable and strong. Thank you for sharing.

I have never commented here before, but I feel pulled out of my vaguely stalker-esque? quiet by this post.

Both of my father’s parents were alcoholics. After being abusive to the entire family, his father left, and he was a teenager when his mother was found dead in a pool of fluids that her liver could no longer process.

When I was a little girl, my father became an alcoholic. It was the reason that my parents divorced, and the reason that he became emotionally distant, and the reason my relationship with him now is only a shadow’s barest outline of what a child’s relationship to their parent should be.

Two months into my freshman year of college, my roommate was killed by a drunk driver.

Now, I am 24. I have never had a drink of alcohol, and I doubt I ever will. I recognize that it’s possible to consume alcohol in moderation and to be responsible, but I recognize in myself too many risks. I not only have the genetic predisposition on my side, but I know that I have obsessive tendencies, and continually find myself with a desire to escape as completely as I can whenever something starts going wrong.

This is the reality of alcohol to me, and I am profoundly grateful to those who are open and honest about the truths of their realities. What you’ve written is powerful and important, and it means a great deal to me to see it said “out loud.” Your ownership and your honesty will make some people think twice, and no one will ever be able to count the number of people whose lives will be saved or made better or just more thoughtful because of it.

[…] I really don’t have anything to write about so I’m going to just link Sundry’s latest entry and tell y’all to go have a read.  I always knew she was a kick-ass writer, but her entry for today made me realize how much I miss what used to be fantastic about online journals.   A long time ago people were able to be honest in their journals and others who read them would actually learn from them, empathize with them, or at the very least get a different perspective on another person’s life.  Unfortunately, the world has gotten mean(er) and a lot of us who do this crazy thing called online journaling tend to not share like we used to.  I guess it’s true when they say that one rotten apple spoils the whole bushel.  But kudo’s to Sundry for sharing a very personal story and I hope a shit-load of people learn from it. […]

Ditto on the sentiments of all those that have shown you support. I do have a question for you though-how do you keep from wanting to rip the screen off the computer when people blast you? What you did was wrong (I’m pretty sure you fessed up to that way up top there)-why the hell can’t they see your post for what it is and not make things worse by posting stupid comments?

I read this in shock and awe. Thank you for telling us about this. That was very brave of you. And I’m so glad to see that you are no longer drinking. This was a hard lesson to learn for sure. I have seen alcohol destroy many people’s lives…even some of my family members. (More of my family than I’d like to admit.) People have sometimes thought me strange for not really liking alcohol, but most of the reason I don’t like it is I see all the bad things that come from it. Again, thank you.

Hi! Extremely long time reader, first time poster… and I just wanted to tell you how much I applaud your post, and know it took balls to say what you did. I just turned 21 years old in March, and on the night that perhaps I should have kicked one or two back and had a great time relishing in my freedom of being the legal age to drink… I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about one person the whole entire day. My childhoold friend, Janakae died last November in an automobile accident. She was the designated driver that night, and took someone home that had too much to drink. On her way home, a lady ran the red light, and died instantly. She was drunk. Jana never came to, again, and they shut the machines off a few days later. She died two months before her 21st birthday. There’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think of her, and try to grip the fact that life took her at such a young age, and at such a horrible price. Thank you for telling your story…. I hope people who read this will realize that drunk driving is an epidemic… and that too many lives are being lost at an alarming rate just because of not making a simple decision and being responsible to one’s self.

I am so proud of you! I probably started reading right about the time this happened and I could always tell there was some sort of secret you kept surrounding alcohol. I am so glad you have chosen to release yourself from that bondage. You are absolutely right, secrets are toxic. It takes a strong person to admit a mistake.

Also – congratulations for chosing the path of life instead of the darker path you could have chosen after your DUII. Riley and JB are so lucky to have you, and so are all of us for that matter.

Thank you for sharing such a personal, powerful story.

My dad was killed by a drunk driver.

Thank you for posting your story and helping to let people know how devastating their actions can be.

I bet it was a hard decision.

Delurking to thank you for sharing what I know must be a painful memory. With your story, you may have actually saved lives. For that, I am thankful to you.

Now, as for you, Mary. It is so nice to know that there are folks out there that don’t need hugs and reassurances when they tell a painful story about their own mistake, that may open them to just that kind of criticism. I, for one, need to know that when I screw up, as apparently you have NEVER done, others still care for me and are willing to show that with hugs, either real or the internet kind. I don’t know about you, but when MY kid comes to me and says that he screwed up…he may still get punished (as Sundry was), but he also gets a hug that says to him that he is not the first or the last to do so and that I love him anyway. And, should he go on to try and take a negative experience, especially a self inflicted one, and turn it into something positive by sharing it with others, he would get a hearty hug and told that I am proud of him! Since I don’t know you, Sundry, I will only add that you have my respect.

One thing I wonder about Linda is how JB dealt with a suddenly sober wife after years of dealing with a alcohol fueled personality. Most marriages break up when one of the participants sobers up I’ve heard, not because the other one wants the drunk to be drunk, but because they don’t really KNOW the newly sober person.

Congrats on telling the story. Hope it is another one of the zombies in your life you have now driven a stake through its heart

Lady, you are an amazing person. I am glad that you told it even though I’m not glad it happened to you. I think everything happens for a reason, and you surely must be fulfilling that by writing this blog entry and causing people to think about their actions and consequences. I admire you so much.

Thank you for sharing this story. It is a powerful story that has already obviously affected many people who have read it. It is incredibly brave of you to share with us. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I really admire you, Linda. Geez, that sounds weak, but I truly mean it. Thanks for this post.