Drugged Driving is Impaired Driving

By Guest Author |

The following is a guest post submitted by a person who asked to remain anonymous but wanted to share their remorse and guilt for having injured a child while driving under the influence of drugs.

Living with Guilt: How I Injured a Child Through Drugged Driving

It all started with a headache.

Several weeks before, my friend gave me one of her Vicodins when I was complaining of a headache in class. It worked amazingly well. From then on, whenever I had a headache I raided my parents’ medicine cabinet for my dad’s pain killers.

I second guessed myself at first, but shrugged it off. They’re prescription, right? It’s not like I was taking something illegal. Then one morning I decided two pills were better than one, then rushed to get ready for school.

That’s when the nightmare began. It had been about an hour since I took the pills. I felt a bit light-headed, but brushed it off to the fact I had skipped breakfast. I’d grab something from the snack machine at school.

Except I never made it to school that day. To this day, I’m not sure what happened next. I saw the school bus up ahead. I vaguely remembered that I needed to stop. Somehow that thought never made it to my foot.

Then there was the sickening thump.

Everything afterward was a blur. Crying, ambulances, people rushing around. An officer shining a flashlight into my eyes, asking me questions, confusing me. I was placed in the back of a police car. I had never been more afraid in my life.

Drugged Driving is Impaired Driving

Drugged Driving is Impaired Driving

The 9 year old boy I hit survived, but he had multiple broken bones and major head trauma. He’s still recovering. The day I sat in court was the first time I looked into his mother’s eyes. How could I feel sorry for myself when seeing the grief in her eyes? She described her son’s attempts to walk again. How some days he wasn’t the same kid due to the brain trauma — mood swings, anger, memory loss. I had done this, I was responsible for this family’s nightmare.

Since I had been a good kid, I got off easy. Community service, fines and time in a drug treatment program. Too easy. Things weren’t the same at home anymore. Where once there was trust, there was now worry, fear, and distrust. My friends treated me differently, and I had to change schools to escape the looks of accusation I felt I saw in everyone’s eyes. I tried to take my own life twice. Anything to escape the guilt.

Several years have passed and I’m out of school now. I’m still paying for my mistake, but I’m trying to turn it into something positive. As part of my atonement, I guess you can say, I’m now interning at the law offices of Zev Goldsteina, a New York attorney.

I visit schools and talk to other teens, to try and show them how even one mistake can ruin lives – and not just your life. That little boy, his family, my family — the consequences of my prescription drug abuse hurt more than just me.

I still have trouble facing myself every day, but I’m learning. Maybe by helping save a few other kids and families, I can atone for my poor judgment.

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Posted in Help for Families | Secondhand Drinking | Codependency, Prevention | Intervention and tagged

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