Kicking the Habits

“Come on…one more…NO! Not again!” I yelled as I was sitting at my computer.  “How does this keep happening?”

         My name is Darius Green, and I am a 22 year old senior at Penn State University.  I have been sitting here on my computer playing online poker for the past three hours, basically throwin’ away my booze money for the night.  Me and the boys are goin’ to the Wahoo Club tonight, and I can’t ask Johnny for any more money ‘cause he won’t lend it to me.  Johnny would just give me this song and dance about how I need to stop playin’ my poker games and not drink like a fish every weekend.  I really don’t think I drink that much or play that much poker so Johnny can go preach to someone who cares, even though he’s my best friend.  Me and Johnny go way back, grade school is where we met, and we hit it off ever since.  The only thing different between me and Johnny is that he is more of a good brown nosing type as opposed to me, the rebel-do-whatever-I-want sort.  But Johnny is still my best friend, and right now I need to focus on these next few hands here so I can win some money back for booze this weekend.

         “Yo Darius! What time we leaving bro?” yelled Mark from downstairs.

         “Around 9:30 I think, I dunno call someone” I replied

         “Okay then.”

         Mark is one of my roommates and good friends, and he hangs with me and Johnny.

         “Yo Darius, oh you’re still playing that?  Whatever, anyway, you get them notes from prof Elms class?”  Dennis asked, another one of my roommates and good friends.

         “Nah man, I slept in today by accident, my bad.”

         “Don’t worry ‘bout it, I’ll just ask that other dude in class.”

         It’s already 8:30, and all I’ve been doing today is playing.  Tonight should be fun at the club with all the boys as it usually is, but it will be a lot better if I can catch a break in this game here and make a few bucks.

         “YES!” I yelled as I finally caught a nice break and won all my money back and then some.  Tonight really is going to fun now that I don’t got to beg for money again.  9:30 rolled around and we were all ready to go out and enjoy another Friday night as a college student!

         When we rolled up to the club, the night started as usual, we all went hunting for some babes to buy drinks for, and began to have a bunch ourselves to get nice and rowdy.  Half an hour and many drinks later I couldn’t even tell you what my name was if you told me.  I just know I was feeling good and dancing the night away with the third girl I bought a drink for, and then that’s when the bad things began to happen.  I felt like I was beginning to get bored at this particular club we were at, and wanted to go club hopping.  I went around trying to find my buddies to get them to agree with me, but they all seemed to be fine with staying here and didn’t feel like going anywhere.  I on the other hand had other ideas, and took the keys from my one friend who drove here, and went out to the car.

         Now I knew perfectly well that driving while under the influence of alcohol was against the law and could get me in serious trouble for the rest of my life, but the problem was I only seemed to know that when I was sober.  The next bar I was trying to go to was about five miles down in the city, and everyone knows that there are a lot of things to cause an accident.  My drunk self figured I could make it down the road with no problem, even though it took me a good five minutes to even start the car.  I somehow made it out of the parking lot, and began to make my way down the road, but that’s when the blue and red lights began to shine behind me…

         All of a sudden my vision became crystal clear, and I began to sober up and realize that this may not end well.  I began to think about what would happen to me, and if I would even get caught.  I wondered if I do get caught, will my other drinking violations have an effect on this?  I was thinking about finishing college, my parents, my future.  What would I do if I lost my license and went to jail as young person in their twenties?  My future was about to take a drastic turn as the officer walked up to my car…

         “Can I see your license and registration please sir?”