Some people never learn.....

So, a buddy of mine,  a drummer in a few bands I played in many years back just kinda disappeared from sight.... dropped off the face of the earth kinda thing.....
 
lets go back a few months..... end of last year, early this year....
 
So I dropped in to see him when I was working in the area where he lives. He's about 2 hrs away so it's not often I get down his way. When I am down there, I always try to meet for lunch, or at least sit a spell and talk.  And, that day we had a really good talk. He was at peace with the crap life was dealing to him. .... we kinda see each other mostly on facebook due to the distance involved. anyway, his mom died last year and the house he was living in with her, got left to his sister.  His sister gave him notice to move out.He was planning to move and get a job with an old friend in construction.
 
So I got noticing that he had disappeared totally off FB.... I searched for him and couldn't find him. Not a big deal since he had unfriended me and blocked me before. (long story)  Sometimes he lets his internet get shut off..... Then about a year after he unfriended me, he sends me a friend request again. Go figure.... I sat on that for a month or two before accepting it...after I called him and we talked.  But, yeah, he's gone again.
 
I sent an inquiry to his "lady friend".... no reply...... hummmmm.....?
 
Anyway, I sent a message to another mutual friend to see if he had seen him on line...... nope....and he couldn't find him either with a search...... then I got to thinking..... at the table that day, he said he might be "going away" again..... care of the department of corrections. Seems he can't seem to stay out of, and off of, motor vehicles when he's drinking liquor and had gotten popped again driving his mom's car on a beer run.....  
 
Sure enough, a search of inmates currently incarcerated in the NC DOC turned up his current status as "incarcerated" ......
 
he hasn't had his driver license in probably 18 to 20 years now...... since that time he got a DUI one night headed to see his wife at work. Since then, a string of DUI's.... 20 or more..... lawyers, judges, fines, lack of income due to not being able to get a car, insurance, or a temp license, and then a year in jail because the judge got tired of seeing him back in the courtroom for the same thing over and over and over......
 
Yep, he's setting in the jailhouse again..... he'll celebrate his 61st birthday behind razor wire...and get out 2 days later..... he'll probably celebrate with a drink..... wanna bet?
 
some people never learn

Kind of sad--at least the fact that he hasn't learned.  Good luck to him. 

sharke
I don't have any sympathy whatsoever for chronic drink drivers, I think they should get a minimum of 10 years in jail. Don't care what they've been through. Drink yourself to death, just do it in the privacy of your own home and not behind the wheel of a car where you're likely to off a family coming home from the kid's birthday party (or whatever other tragic circumstance it usually turns out to be). I hate the way the drunk driver so often survives these fatal wrecks as well. I despise them. I grassed my own parents up for drink driving when I was a kid and have never regretted it.

 
Absolutely. Driving under the influence is a serious crime and a danger to everyone on the road or near the road. We have some pretty heavy laws here in NC but, that won't stop the determined person.... and they can always get a scooter, golf cart, bike or horse, which BTW is also a crime to be on while drunk.
 
Jail time.... I'm in full agreement and NC has a 3 strikes you're out policy ..... but money and lawyers and overcrowded jails tend to have judges issuing lenient sentences.
 

I think we all have tendencies toward different vices. Alcohol is certainly one that can get a person into a lot of trouble, and harm others in the process, and one of those that if caught under the right/or wrong conditions can result in jail time. I seriously doubt he wanted to hurt anyone, but if he keeps at it someone besides him would have been hurt. That's the thing about a vice that has you under it's control, you don't use logic anymore and someone or something eventually steps in to force your hand, either that or you end up killing yourself. Unfortunately jail is probably the best thing for him...although the detox will be over way before he gets out.
 
I have a friend who got out of control recently. He didn't show for his job and so a few guys went looking for him. They found him surrounded by empty 5th bottles. He is a diabetic and drinking sweet whiskey could have easily killed him.He hadn't been eating...it really is a miracle he isn't dead. When they found him he didn't know what day it was, heck I don't think he knew the year.....his story has a better ending. His job is a place where they won't fire you for having an addiction, instead they will help you to get treatment, so now he's in detox instead of a casket or in jail. I really hope his story has a good ending. You won't find a kinder gentler human being than him. It really is a shame that we get these monkeys on our backs.

My friend is very likely a functioning alcoholic. He can down a six pack and the effects don't show in his speech. I'd be slurring and staggering.  Every show we ever played, he would always buy the 6pack for the ride home during our last break. The clubs are not permitted to sell it after a certain hour.... well, that was how it was back then.
 
Yes Dave.... we've been told to "keep-um dancing" so that they would drink more.  My friend was the drummer and handled the show and most of the singing..... and he was always pushing sales at the bar.... he knew what we were there to do.....
 
One night..... after the gig, I headed home. No sooner had I pulled out of the club's parking lot a NC highway patrol car did a quick U-turn in behind me and hit the blue lights.  No sweat, I didn't drink in the clubs when I was playing..... soda and water was all I drank. The trooper sticks his head in the window to see if he could smell alcohol and asked me if I had been drinking that night. I told him no, I hadn't been drinking. He says, I just saw you pull out of that club and you haven't been drinking?  I said again, no sir, I play in the band and since the state considers us as employees of the club, we are not permitted by law to drink alcohol so no sir, I have only been drinking water.   He handed my license back and wished me a safe trip back home.
Several minutes later, my friend, Danny, the drummer pulled out as well. He had his customary 6pack on the floorboard with the first one freshly popped.  Same trooper pulled him over. As he comes up to the car window, Danny had simply set the open can on the floor and rolled the window down expecting fully to be arrested for DUI. Danny had an old station wagon with the glass windows, and had his drums in the back. The trooper saw the drums and said, well I guess you play in the band too huh? Danny said yeah.... the trooper said he had just talked to me and didn't even ask Danny for his license or get close enough to smell the beer.
 
We also announced from the stage that if people had a bit too much to drink to call a cab and not risk the ride home...... but Danny never took his own advise.  When NC lowered the DUI threshold, I stopped drinking in the clubs. It went from .12 to .10, and then later to .08 where it is now.  It just was not worth the cost. I never had a DUI arrest, fortunately. 
 
Now days I do not drink unless I am on my own property and have no plans to go anywhere and even then, it's one beer, maybe two on a hot day and got the BBQ fired up,  and I'm content.  The days of getting plastered or even seriously buzzed are well behind me now.