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How to talk to my drunk driving boyfriend

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:48:14 -0800

I just found out that my boyfriend drove drunk last night... What do I say to him? Background: We are both 25 and have been dating for a year and a half. We are doing the long-distance thing for 3 months (just started a couple weeks ago) and he has been home for a week visiting his family in L.A. I'm pretty sure both his mom and younger brother have problems with alcohol, and his dad used to be an alcoholic. My boyfriend rarely drinks with me, but has said a couple things about how much fun he has when he does drink. In general though, he is very responsible and when he does drink, he has never done anything abnormally irresponsible.

However, last night, my boyfriend ended up going out clubbing with his mom (a little weird, but whatever). I realized he was drunk after getting misspelled text messages and reports on his drinking. About an hour after the last incoherent message, I texted him to see how things were going. He said he was almost home and that he was driving because his mom wasn't sober enough to drive. I was upset, but didn't want to text him anymore because as bad as drinking and driving is, text drunk driving is even worse. I talked to him later, which confirmed that he was still drunk, but he didn't seem repentant at all... he said he got home safe, so it didn't really matter!

Obviously I plan on talking to my boyfriend more about this, but I am worried that he doesn't seem concerned about his drunk driving. I'm really upset about this, and although I'm not a fan of ultimatums, this could be a deal breaker for me. I can forgive if I know this is a one time thing, but I feel like if he doesn't see anything wrong with it now, he won't later either. I'm sure I'm not the first one to have someone close to me drive drunk, so I was wondering how other people have dealt with this.

Any suggestions for talking to him and explaining my dismay in a constructive way? I'm worried about him and his safety, as well as the possible repercussions of drunk driving.

I'm Lisa Simpson, and I'm dating Barney Gumble's best friend.

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:54:36 -0800

My boyfriend's best friend from childhood is an exact clone of Barney Gumble (from the Simpsons) in regards to drinking, but fortunately lives out of state. My boyfriend stopped drinking heavily last year, and says he's happier for it. Now "Barney" is coming to spend a week with us, and plans to move to our town/neighborhood in the fall. How do I deal with this situation, and my anxieties that my lovely boyfriend will revert to his old ways? Background: I've been dating my boyfriend for two years, we moved in together a couple months ago. When we first started going out, his tendency to get wasted every weekend (and some weeknights) made me not take the relationship, or him, very seriously. But when his two drinking buddies moved away last year, he stopped drinking all the time, saving it only for special occasions, and generally just seemed to mature a lot. Our relationship got better and better and we eventually decided to move in together.

Now I've met Barney on numerous occasions, and every time I've met him he's been drunk. When he comes to visit he and the boyfriend always pick up several cases of beer and always drink until they puke, but I let it slide because it's a reunion of sorts, and the visit never lasts more than a few days. My boyfriend himself admits that Barney probably is an alcoholic. To paint a clearer picture:Barney, when I first met him, was urinating on my fence. Then when my boyfriend wasn't looking, he put his hand up my skirt. So I don't have the best impression of this guy, and he's never done much to improve upon it. The scariest part is that I've caught my boyfriend DRIVING drunk when he was with Barney, which is a huge, huge issue for me. My boyfriend is lovely and trustworthy while sober, but makes terrible decisions while drunk-- another reason why I am so happy he hardly ever drinks these days.

Which brings me to my problem: next month Barney and his (sweet but ditzy) girlfriend are coming to our apartment to stay with us for a week. Not something I'm thrilled about, but we are the only people in this city that they know, and Barney and his girlfriend are trying to find jobs here. They plan to move to our neighborhood in the fall. Since my boyfriend is Barney's ONLY social connection here, I just know that Barney is going to be at our apartment, passed out on the couch, every other night. I work long hours and really value my quiet time, and go to bed around 10pm on weeknights. Last time Barney visited he was so loud I had to leave my boyfriend's apartment at 2am on a Wednesday and go to my own apartment to sleep (this is back when we lived separately.)

Most of all I'm worried that my boyfriend will go back to drinking all the time, since he loves Barney and it's the only way Barney knows how to have fun. I don't respect my boyfriend when he's out of control drunk, and I had hoped to never again see drinking play the role in his life that it once did. This is something I could very well see ruining our otherwise awesome relationship.

I communicated all this to my boyfriend and he got very upset, saying that he didn't stop drinking because his buddies moved away, but because he had outgrown it. (Yet in the year since then, whenever Barney shows up, he still gets wasted.) So I can't quite convince myself that he is the model of restraint he pretends to be, and that it wasn't just circumstantial that he stopped drinking because he had no one to drink with.

I feel really helpless in this situation, and have even spoken to friends about staying with them for the week that Barney's here, but I don't know what to do when he MOVES here. I don't want to be a controlling bitch, but I don't want to live with the person my boyfriend becomes when he's drinking all time. Do I say something to Barney? To Barney's girlfriend? If I lay down the law, like saying "no getting wasted in the apartment" how do I know they won't drive home drunk? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Please help for a friend guilty of manslaughter

MiguelCardoso — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:11:56 -0800

A year ago, a friend of mine was drunk-driving and killed his best friend in a car accident. He needs help. Where can he turn to? His trial is coming up and he's shattered with guilt. He was an alcoholic but stopped drinking the night he collided with his friend's car. He's heavily medicated but it isn't helping. Are there any support groups for recovering alcoholics who were guilty of manslaughter? Or for those who've killed someone on the road through their own fault? Is there any way he could help others and so help himself? Perhaps he could set up an organization to help drunk drivers stop drinking or drinking-and-driving?

Finally, on the legal side, perhaps there are lines of defense outside Portugal which his legally-appointed provincial lawyer hasn't considered? He doesn't care about his lawyer or his defense but his family and friends are in a panic as they obviously want his punishment to be as light as possible.

He's a very nice guy - a fisherman, 50 years old, lives in an isolated hamlet by the sea - but now he's apathetic and depressed and just wants to go to jail and leave his (wonderful) family alone, in the hope they won't suffer so much - psychologically and financially - because of him. He's stopped working, driving and chatting to his friends. Everybody around him is desperate, including me.

Any help - however remote it may seem - will be much appreciated. Thank you.

Girlfriends against drunk driving

ellebee — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:37:20 -0800

Where can I find statistics about drunk driving on New Year's Eve? Trying to help a friend settle a disagreement about the safety of driving him to the airport at 3am on 1/1, so I need some statistics and/or articles about the potential hazards of driving at that time on that day.

MADD PSA - year, location and agency

seawallrunner — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:42:33 -0800

Who produced this PSA ad, in what city, and what year? My question is about a very poignant ad for MADD against drunk driving. I believe that this ad has run for about 10 years now.

There is no dialog. The ad consists of four consecutive empty glasses of beer, placed one after the other (with an ever-hollower sound) in front of the windshield of a driven car - obscuring more and more the vision of the driver. In the final frame of the ad (after the fourth beer) the driver slams into an oncoming bus.

I was having a discussion about this ad with a friend. I believe that this ad was produced in Montreal, and the highway that the 'drunk' is travelling is the Bonaventure Express. My friend thinks that this ad was shot in the US.

My Googling has failed me - I am looking for the name of the agency that produced this ad, the year that this ad was produced, and the city where it was created. Thank you in advance

Sobering Sobriety Tests

patrickje — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 11:56:37 -0800

Soooo, in the last 6 months, I've been pulled over twice for 'Suspicion of drunk driving', both times I've been given a field sobriety test and failed, both times I've subsequently blown a 0.0, because I was stone cold sober. What exactly is the field sobriety looking for? Why am I failing? Some more information, both times were really late at night when I was really tired.

Friend with a Drinking and Driving Problem

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 08:42:06 -0800

[Social consciense filter]
I know, for a fact, that someone is drink driving EVERY DAY. Not just a few pints, but at LEAST 8pints and then driving home. Mostly it's a short, five minute drive, but sometimes it's longer distance. I have tried to talk to him and get him to stop - to walk to the pub. His brother has tried to talk to him. He just won't. He is also diabetic, so the drink has adverse effects on his sugar levels, which makes him more dangerous. He can't even walk properly when he gets home, so goodness knows how he can drive. The problem is, this person is a relative - and he's given me somewhere to live when I had nowhere.

I just don't know what to do. Would you inform someone? Or would you keep quiet? I don't particularly WANT to 'rat' on him, but what happens if he hits someone, and I know I could have stopped it? What would you do?

What's the deal with this 'How to Avoid a DUI' video?

geoff. — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 19:05:40 -0800

Well this will get a lot of flack, but what's the deal with this ' How to Avoid a DUI''? It's the latest local news sensationalist reporting fad, and I'm really curious. Personally, I will never have more than one drink and drive (yeah, yeah even one is apparently bad), but I can't think of what would be on the video that's so bad. I realize that sensationalist local news reporting is just that, but they have some truth in them. I mean .08 is a .08 no matter where you are? The news report basically said that this was a magic bullet to avoid the "casual drinker DUI", which I would assume would be the guy who's at .09 or something, not the guy who can't even talk.

So is this just sensationalism? My rational side says if there was magic words you can say to a cop or something you can do to avoid a DUI everyone would know it.

I have an annoying thing inside me that must know every aspect of my civil rights.