I don't understand why people think they can do this

Some people are bent on traveling certain paths even when all the evidence tells them what the end is going to be. They still keep going. I explain that to my children you're not the first to travel any path good or bad others have went before. It pays to listen and observe
Take heed to wisdom it will guide you in the way you should go or not go.

 

For many years I carried around a crap ton of guilt because I couldn't "fix" a business partner and good friend who was an alcoholic. You try everything and it just doesn't work. It's a terrible disease.

 

Alcoholics can be manipulative as hell. They disrupt the lives of everyone around them, get everybody jumping through hoops and worrying themselves sick about them...and then just go on and drink.
Most of them don't want to be "fixed", they want to be left alone so they can do what they want to do.
I've seen people beat alcohol but I've seen more that never did.

 

What is "OUI". Is that a typo or a thing?

 

Operating Under the Influence

 

Thank you. I have never heard that term before.

 

I realize this thread is about alcohol, but I have given money to two people over the last several years. Both I later learned played the lotto and some gambling with it. People with addictions sometimes can play your emotions like a musical instrument. One of those two was a young mother to who I gave money to buy diapers for her baby. Regretfully I had to call Virginia CPS and they did take the baby. Rips my heart out!

 

Mothers Against Drunk Driving or MADD is an organization that truly changed how American society looked at people driving drunk. For those of us old enough to remember, you rarely heard about anybody getting a DUI before around 1990. Yes it could happen, but they didn't throw the book at you like they do now. I got my license in 76, and was pulled over many times in my youth with beer in my car with friends out having a good time. Granted I wasn't a heavy drinker and never got completely wasted, but by today's standards I could have easily wound up in jail. Back then cops would have you dump out the beer and tell you to drive safely on your way home. My wife and I both remember our parents coming home wasted in the 60's from dinner parties with friends while we sat home with a baby sitter. Times have really changed since then.

 

State laws were different. When I was 16 (1974) it was actually legal to drive and consume alcohol. Yes, you had to be careful with the open carry and public consumption laws, but in general, you could have alcohol in your car. I used to keep beer in a cooler in my car. A DUI was considered minor and very few drivers lost their licenses. Back then Truck drivers held licenses in many states. I can remember watching a driver at the old Goldmine TS near Carnesville Ga plop 6 licenses down. ALL valid! MADD was formed in 1980 this was the year I left the Air Force, by1980 it was beginning to be illegal to have open containers in a vehicle. It was not long after this congress passed and POTUS signed into law the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986. This stopped drivers from having more than one license.