My trial was postponed until June of 1995 on the anniversary of D-Day (Drunk Day for me). The month of May saw me demoted back into the warehouse, riding my bike in the dark to catch the 5:40 am train to New Brunswick and riding around 10 more miles to work. I caught rides from co-workers back to the station after work and then I would get off in Metuchen, attend my counseling session, then hop another train and ride my bike home. Looking back now, it was the best thing that could have happened. The work was hard and physically demanding and the commute was brutal at times, but it kept reminding me that drinking caused it and it was the price I would continue to pay unless I did something about it...(of course I wasn't that enlightened at the time it was happening). I met my lawyer at court and I noticed two other people at the prosecutor's table. I asked my lawyer who they were. "That is the couple you rear ended at the end of the high speed police chase." I couldn't remember...anything. Even after reading the police report, to this day I cannot remember anything from the time I left my sister's house at 6 pm on Sunday night until I awoke in a cell on Monday morning. My blood alcohol was .28 and I ran a police car off the road during the chase but thank God I didn't kill anyone...The verdict: Guilty as charged. Loss of license: 2 years...Community service: 180 hours...Court mandated weekend for driver re-education...Court mandated out-patient rehabilitation for 16 weeks...Fines and fees totaling close to $1000...add to that a 15% pay cut and demotion at work...Commuting by bicycle and train...having the car parked in the driveway and not getting to use it...I finally had to face the consequences...
The court mandated weekend was at a converted convent in Passaic, N.J. (hardly the garden spot in the Garden State). Check in was 6 pm Friday night and we were told that if we were late for any reason we would be sent back to court for harsher punishment. By the time I was processed and showed to my cot that I shared with another inmate (the room, not the cot), it was about 7:30 pm. Great. Good night's sleep, up in the morning? Oh no...Get settled and down to the assembly area by 8 pm. We were up until 2 am watching films on drunk driving and an AA meeting and listening to lectures. Saturday morning was up at 7 for breakfast and non stop until Saturday night. The same routine for Sunday. On Saturday we filled out a questionnaire on our drinking habits...(I lied on the one they gave us for my first DWI). This time I told the truth...they came and took me to the administrators office immediately. They wanted to know if I misunderstood the questions. I told them no. They said I should be in a program. I told them I was already in one. They questioned how it was that I was still alive...got me on that one. I had no idea.
I made it to 15 weeks at the rehab place without admitting I had a problem with drugs and alcohol...I hadn't had anything to drink, but I was running on sheer willpower...(God's, not mine). I wasn't sharing in group and I told myself that one more week and I was free. A friend in group invited me to his "home" meeting for AA the following night. Sure, what could it hurt? I went and the wheels of the denial bus finally came off. It wasn't like in the Blues Brothers where the light shines on Belushi, but the light did come on. A man stood up and told his story and it was MY story. Everything I felt, everything I thought about, all the hopelessness and feeling alone against the world, the feeling that this was only happening to me was put out in the open by a complete stranger. I couldn't believe it. God had put this man in my life for one brief night and changed my life forever..."Everything happens for a reason" was never made so perfectly clear as it was that night. A flood of emotion rocked me and I am brought to tears even now remembering it. I stood up that night and introduced myself...Hello, my name is Jim...I am an alcoholic...
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