Mistakes

College students all over the United States - perhaps all over the world - drink booze and some of them drink too much and get behind the wheel or, in the case of Peter Jok, on a moped. http://thegazette.com/subject/sports/iowas-jok-arrested-for-owi-20140427#ixzz302xJDdfJ

I read this story and wondered about how my life could have changed for the much worse if I had been picked up for drunk driving when I was in college and, in retrospect, even after college. The fact that I would ever get behind the wheel after drinking booze and think that I was "okay" to drive home is absurd to me. Why would I do that? Why would I risk not only my life but the lives of strangers?

The worst that ever happened to me is when I was stopped on my way to a bar called Spanky's in downtown Cedar Rapids in the fall of 1988. I was a freshman at Mount Mercy College and it was the Thursday of finals week. I honestly don't remember if I had a final the next day or if I was done with the exams. As I recall, I had actually probably only been drinking booze for about a month. I didn't drink booze in high school and for the majority of that first semester of classes, I didn't begin to drink. I did start drinking, though, after a Freaker's Ball dance on or around Halloween 1988. So, in December 1988, I was new to the effects of booze to my system and I was the designated driver. I think I had drank a couple of wine coolers before we left that night. I accelerated through a yellow light and was pulled over. It was the scariest moments of my life when I was handed a ticket and told that the police officer didn't care how horny we all were, accelerating through a yellow light was not a good choice.

My point is that I get that college students make mistakes and I get that Peter Jok now will probably face scrutiny as a basketball player for the rest of his career. He will be mocked by fans when the Iowa Hawkeyes travel to play in places like Wisconsin, Illinois, and  Minnesota. He will end up paying hefty fines, both monetary and personal, because he will be viewed differently. Personally, I always thought Zach McCabe would be the current Iowa Hawkeye men's basketball player to have issues with the law for no other reason than how competitive he was on the court and his WWE move on the opposing team's player when he flipped the guy and then was promptly ejected.

And now, when I think about how my life has progressed and how busy it has become, I don't think my life has any room for booze. There are too many other things that need to be done and those priorities are harder to accomplish / finish when I'm drunk the night I'm trying to accomplish them or hung over on the morning after. It's more important to me to be sober than it is to drink booze. It's been that way now for 1216 days or 3 years, 4 months, which is how long I haven't drank booze. I don't envision a day when it won't be important for me to be sober. I like that. A lot.