Loved Ones Will Pay for Your Holiday Bender

The focus of most drunk-driving campaigns is a concern for the myriad unpleasant events that can befall an individual who gets behind the wheel while intoxicated. Yet the thought of going to jail, high insurance rates, major injury or even death doesn’t seem to have much of an effect against the six-week holiday party season. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, having a good time with family and friends is the tradition--parties with co-workers, visits with far-flung relatives, fancy dinners with all the trimmings, including fine wines and special drinks. So this year I’d like to change the authoritative pitch about avoiding “one more for the road” with a twist appropriate to the season: Think about how family and friends and co-workers will have to deal with your “one too many.”

If you are one of the fortunate drunk drivers who is apprehended before you get into an accident, someone you care about, and who cares for you, will journey down to the local station house to bail you out. They’ll have to come up with a substantial piece of cash, anywhere up to $1,000, and that can be inconvenient; at holiday time it may be close to impossible. If it is their first time at a station desk posting bail, the atmosphere is bound to be depressing. Still, you should count yourself among the fortunate: While you have humiliated yourself and your family, you and yours will still be around to enjoy the holiday.

Of course, just bailing out of jail is not the end of the matter; it’s the beginning. You and your family still have a court trial to look forward to, and possibly some time in jail. Try to think of the most tactful and easiest way to tell the people you care about that you will be spending some time “away.” How would you phrase the message that your financial future is a shambles and that you might have to move to a “smaller place?” Picture telling your employer that you might need a leave of absence for “personal reasons.” Test your creativity by coming up with a story for your kids to tell their friends. Attempt to construct some logical, rational excuse to explain your part in the injury or death of some innocent person. This last one can be real tough, because you will know that the people really close to you just don’t believe you.

If you are among those whose “one last drink” literally will be that, your loved ones will experience a unique and unpleasant holiday visitation. In Los Angeles, if you are the victim of a fatal traffic accident, the officers assigned to investigate your death will also have the task of notifying your next of kin. Imagine the scene: your husband or wife, maybe your kids and your parents, all gathered in your home waiting for you, wondering where you are and probably annoyed that you’ve delayed the festivities. The doorbell rings, and there stand two uniformed officers. “Are you Mrs./Mr. (fill in your last name)?” From this point on the dialogue is standard: “There has been an accident,” then the name, the place and “I’m sorry; is there a neighbor or friend that we can call for you?” Perhaps a brief account of what happened or some information on how to obtain the body will be offered.

Now your family will face the the numbing prospect of seeing to it that you are picked up from the coroner’s office. Here in Los Angeles that procedure is much more sterile than in many places. They won’t have to see you in the actual morgue, laid out in a steel drawer with a tag affixed to your toe; your loved ones will merely have to view your face on a video screen from an office. Then they can go home and try to cope with the fact that will haunt them all their days: You died for the sake of a drink.

If for only a moment you can visualize your family, your friends, your co-workers and your world without you, then perhaps the attraction of that “holiday cheer” might diminish. Then you will be ready to contribute toward what may be the most meaningful gift that we all can give to one another: the promise of a non-impaired driver behind every wheel for a safe holiday season.