Do You Drive After Alcohol

Submitted By sbassett7
Words: 622
Pages: 3

When faced with a question like this I can’t help but to think about what has happened in someone’s life where they would put their life in danger and other people’s lives in danger just for a few hours of fun. I once read an article about alcoholics and there was a quiz at the end of the article asking so many questions and if you answered “yes” to any of the questions then you were considered an alcoholic. One of the questions were “Do you drive after alcohol intake”, therefore statistically you are considered an alcoholic if you drink and drive. Reason being is because you basically don’t care what happens to you or anyone around you as long as you get a drink and that is what I think makes an alcoholic. With this being said I do not think that jail and/or prison is an effective deterrent against drinking and driving. Alcoholism is a disease; even though technically the person is excessively drinking by choice it is a result of depression, being neglected and different issues within oneself which makes it a disease.
People shouldn’t be punished for a disease where they essentially can’t control it; they need help in controlling themselves and getting better. I think a better solution would be to require people that are caught drinking and driving to go to a rehabilitation center or Alcohol Anonymous meetings opposed to jail time. This would be a better choice, because they will actually be working to better themselves instead of staring at four walls waiting to get out and get another drink. This will also decline the amount of drunk drivers and/or alcoholics in the future, because it wouldn’t be environmentally passed down to their children and younger family members. In most states today the penalties include lengthy license suspensions, possibly a little jail time, and a felony charge if you have over three DUI charges. The last consequence is the most detrimental, because there are many sub consequences that go along with it. People with felonies lose most of their civil rights, such as being able to vote or own a weapon as well as losing their license for many years or permanently. People under these circumstances have to go through a lot of in order to