Drink-Driving

Writing to Persuade

Writing to a teenage magazine, article

It had been a long day and I had managed to get through it, yet again I had got through another day and my mates dragged me to the pub, I was nervous when we entered and felt as though everybody was staring at me all thinking ‘What's she doing in here? Isn't she the one whose boyfriend died when she crashed her car.' I didn't have one single drink and was grateful when we finally left, as we walked down the street it brought it all flooding back to me, the lights flashing, the screaming, the darkness and the pain- I saw and heard it all again and it broke my heart. Its been four years now, I can still see his face, can still hear his voice but most of all I can still feel his kiss, his smell is all around me and I can still hear his laughter- but he isn't here, I know its my fault I was the one who insisted on driving and I had no right to do that. It was me who chose to get behind the wheel.

Tony was the best thing in my life and I lost him. The sirens of the police car still ring inside my ears and the sound of the heart monitor when it beeped ‘flat line' still haunts me. That night was the worst night off my life as I drank and danced getting drunker and drunker. Drink after drink, dance after dance drowning my sorrows in the stupidest way, looking for the answer in the bottom of my aftershock shot glass. My parents had thrown me out of the house that night because I was seeing Tony, they didn't realise he was the love of my life, and also that I needed him as much as I needed them but when I had to make a choice between them I had to choose him, my parents had always been the centre of my universe, they were more like friends than anything else, and so when they kicked me out I didn't have them anymore. My life was far from perfect and the only thing that made sense in it now, him, all in all we were together one and a half years, the time we had was full of the kind of love I never knew existed and I threw it away, I got behind the wheel and when I crashed the car I lost him. I
remember the sounds were horrific and the pain he suffered, I saw it in his eyes, was
unbearable, the paramedics couldn't do anything to help and all I could do was watch. All I know now is that I am overwhelmed with pain, everyday I think about it, everyday I go through unbearable pain, the kind of pain he suffered was twice as bad as what I suffer now, and I can not handle it, just knowing he experienced pain that bad makes me break up in tears, the kind of things he went through that night: I caused it and it makes me physically sick that I could cause the person love to have that amount of pain.
Some people say I have paid for what I have done, 3 and a half years in prison, three and a half tears of reflecting on what I did, every day the same, my head full of thought of Tony, and how I killed him, that's right at the end of the day I have killed him, at the end of the day there's no other way to put it, I drove the car when I was drunk, I killed him by choosing to put both of our lives at risk. My mum and Dad stood by me at the end of it all, after the car had crashed, after the police cars turned up and he died they stood and put their arms around me, they comforted me, they knew how I felt without me telling them, and I began to realise that I had no reason to have got that drunk, my mum and dad did still love me, they did still know how I felt, they knew my feelings and even though they threw me out they did love me and they always would. It was a pain beyond everything I had ever felt, I had drank because I had lost my parents and now that had caused me to lose my best friend, I got my parents back but Tony's death caused me to realise I had never lost them in the first place.
I chose to write in to Sugar to tell all of you out there that nothing makes drink driving
worthwhile, nothing should drive you to do the same thing that I did. Its a painful experience when you lose someone you loved more than anything in the world and if your willing to do it then you should be willing to live the consequences, the consequences that will stay with you for the rest of your life, a thing that takes one night to happen you will spend a lifetime reeling in the consequences that it brought about. I have experienced more in the last 4 years trying to get the sounds out of my head and no matter how hard you try you can never forget it was your fault, I have got to the stage now where I don't want to forget, I have spent too long trying to make right what I did and I know that the only thing I can do is live with it, because he'll never come back, and this has been the hardest decision in my life, I have chosen to live with the consequences, because I can not live with myself if I ever forgot what I did. I have had four years of punishment so far and for however long I live I know I will have lived them years reliving the moment my life got crushed, all I say is if you are reading this, don't make the same mistakes I have made, just live your life and please don't think your only way out is drink, I learnt the hard way.