I'm still ashamed I got behind the wheel

I was involved in a drink driving accident when I was 22. I didn’t think that what I was doing was really ‘drink driving’ – I wasn’t going anywhere, in fact  all I was doing was turning my car around. I wasn’t even leaving the street. It all seemed relatively harmless.
 
But my foot hit the accelerator instead of the break and the next thing I knew, I had run into a power pole at about 30km/h. My head was all but through the windscreen and my knees were wedged into the dashboard. The car was a write off.
 
To this day I can still remember the look on the faces of my mum and dad as they looked at the mangled wreck of the car the next morning – the engine block all but crushing the front seats, the windscreen cracked with my blood and hair left behind. The reality of the scene chilled me as we all then realised how different the outcome could have been.
 
I’m still ashamed that I got behind the wheel. There is no excuse. I shudder to think of what might have been – what if there had been an innocent bystander in the street, what if I hadn’t been so ‘lucky’?
 
Losing my licence was my punishment but it’s the ‘what ifs’ that still give me nightmares. I hope this story might make others stop and think before getting into a car when drunk.

Small Steps

I couldn’t even go to Fox’s funeral