My Story – Mistakes Were Made…

Just like with anything else, there are lots of things in life I thought were problems at the time. For example, how many people can say they got fired from a job they didn’t even have? It happened to me! Once my dad decided to part ways with his other partner in his then business, I was subsequently let go from all things to do with the company. I would be less than honest if I said I didn’t see that one coming, but that one still stung a bit.

After the company was out of the picture and I was back to only one job being self employed, my dad and I decided to start our own business.  This leads me to the last thirteen years of my life. The company is still doing well despite the challenges over the last few years.

My father passed away while working at home about two years ago after having a massive heart attack. He had no known issues, as far as I knew, and we were very close. Not only did we see each other all the time, but we worked together outside of work as well. He loved working on vehicles and we had worked on several over the years. This was the first real problem I had encountered in my life. One that couldn’t be changed no matter how hard I worked or put things out of my mind. 

After dad passed it was down to me and mom to run the company, at least the office side of things. We weren’t perfect but we made it work the vast majority of the time. My now business partner had already helped a ton after dad, but I was about to learn that when it rains, it pours.

The Memorial Day following my dad’s death I decided that I had time to take a break from life. That’s how I used to look at it at least. This meant that if I had the day off I would generally find my weapon of choice, Wild Turkey 101, and drink until I didn’t think anymore. So, that is what I did. I started early and I didn’t hold back. After a short amount of time, I was out. Now, this would have been poor judgment in itself as alcohol isn’t really a solution to anything, but what happened next was the worst mistake of my life.

I got a phone call from my son at about 3:30 PM on Memorial Day. Keep in mind I had more than any human should have earlier in the day with the intention of sleeping it off and being ok the next day. Well, drunk me didn’t think I was impaired at all. In fact, I took this phone call as an opportunity to go get more to go to sleep later that night. Not only did I learn I had the incorrect day on my schedule and that the kids needed food; I also figured out I was the parent in charge for the day. So, I decided to get in the truck and drive to get food for the kids and booze for the night in order to sleep. Well, I didn’t make it back with food. This is where I woke up earlier in the story. On the side of the road with a nearly new truck, now demolished. Turns out, since I hit a fence post and live where I do, this would be an automatic charge of DUI if anything showed in my system. Needless to say, it showed and boy did it…  I spent most of the evening in jail before being let go on bond several hours later. I would soon find out that this was only the beginning.

I set up a meeting with an attorney to see what the next steps should be. Looking back, there really wasn’t much I could do. I ended up going to court about 4-5 months after Memorial Day and after a court mess up and a few trips back and fourth, I found myself with a charge of DUI and learned that I would lose my license for a year, have to take a drug and alcohol class, do 25 hours of community service, pay all the fines, court costs, the lawyer being paid, and the truck replaced, it would end up being a nearly 50k mistake. Granted I would take this over hurting anyone any day of the week, but that still hurt, and hurt for a very long time.

About eighteen months after my father passed away my mother started to develop balance issues. I would come to work and find her not in the office and this would usually end up with me looking around her house to find out where she was and what she needed. On numerous occasions I found her laying in various locations trying to regain her balance. The main indicator for me was when I found her at the foot of the steps in her garage with blood on her arm. She told me she had been there for about half an hour and she couldn’t reach her phone.

I spoke with my fiancé, about the issues we were having. She worked in a medical office and would frequently get questions similar to this. My fiancé stated that she needed to talk to the doctor, but it sounded like she needed to get some testing done to see what was going on. After blood tests, CT scans, and an MRI, we found out that she had an inoperable brain tumor covering almost all of the top portion of her brain. This wasn’t mom’s first time with a scare like this as she had a tumor removed when I was about 21 years old, but this one would turn out to be much worse than before. The specialists told us that she wouldn’t be able to recover from this. Shortly after her symptoms worsened to the point she didn’t know where she was and was often almost childlike in her actions.  The doctors said that her best option would be hospice a few days before Christmas. She made it until the 1st of January and passed. She was comfortable for the most part and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I am starting to make things turn around now and have been able to complete all of my fines and requirements for my actions while maintaining the device, meetings with people who don’t really seem to care anything about me, and other people who think they know but don’t at all.  All of this to say, I have been at least very close to rock bottom. If I can make it out of this hole, anyone can. It does take some work and a lot of persistence, and it won’t always be a fun thing to do, but it is doable and I know people make it out of similar situations to mine each and every day. I am thankful for a loving wife and kids, for each and every detail of my life, and for the people I call friends.

All of this to say, I understand what it is like to have to “blow start” your car. I understand the looks you get when you are stopped at a traffic light and the alarm goes off forcing you to complete, yet another test. I wanted to create something to help me keep some of my dignity in this situation, after all, I was doing what I was supposed to do and yet I still felt like a criminal. Most people don’t understand that the new rules for DUI occur after a first offense. They assume you are a repeat offender and incapable of change. As we know, this isn’t the case. We can all do what we put our minds to, and that is just a fact. It might take more work, or more outside help for some of us, but it is still doable. 

Maintaining the program has taught me that I am stronger than I ever thought possible. Doing that while keeping two businesses going has reiterated that fact. I am proud of where I am and I don’t need people staring at me making me think I am any less of a person than they. I put together a cover to help. This along with a few strategically placed vinyl decals over a box and a camera, some black wire loom over a white cable allowed me to be more relaxed while driving and most people don’t even know the difference between this cover and a jug of water while it is used.

People ask me why I started making these covers. I honestly want to tell them my entire life story, but often give them a snippet followed by, “Even with all that I have gone through, I found using the ignition interlock device a very degrading situation” and it seems counter intuitive to make the people who are doing what they are supposed to, suffer on the daily, and multiple times a trip because of a few bad apples.

If you have made it this far, thank you. I apologize and told you I was not author. I simply wanted to say “hello” and I know you can do this. I have developed a product that might possibly help you out while you are doing your time with an Intoxalock interlock device, and I would love to help if I could.  I know they helped me.