Reality Check I: A Sobering Experience
I'd been living back at home about three months when I got arrested for DUI. It was January 18th, just two weeks after my 39th birthday. I'd been to the Seattle Boat Show at the now defunct Kingdome with a friend and afterward we stopped by Sneakers Sports Bar & Grill (also defunct) for drinks and appetizers and NTN Trivia. Four hours later, on the drive home, I was pulled over for speeding but eventually arrested for DUI (driving under the influence). Two weeks later I was back at Sneakers for drinks and appetizers and NTN Trivia. On the drive home I was pulled over again (this time for making an illegal u-turn) and arrested for DUI. Although I knew I was clearly intoxicated for my first arrest (I 'blew' a .25 BAC on the hand-held breathalyzer), I felt completely sober during my second arrest but still managed to blow a .08.
I hired a lawyer and paid him thousands of dollars only to have him tell me that I could avoid a conviction and jail time if I agreed to deferred prosecution.
In Washington state, the DUI Deferred Prosecution is a program that allows a person suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, or a mental health problem to petition the court to enter an intensive treatment program in lieu of being prosecuted. Successful completion of the Deferred Prosecution, treatment program and compliance with other court imposed conditions will result in dismissal of the DUI and may avoid a suspension of driver's license by the Department of Licensing. The Deferred Prosecution law allows an individual to petition the court for deferral of their case for five years while they seek treatment for their disease. If the request is granted the advantages of the Deferred Prosecution are clear:
In order to qualify for Deferred Prosecution the DUI defendant must obtain an evaluation from a state approved treatment agency. The agency will conduct an assessment and must conclude that the criminal conduct for which Deferred Prosecution is sought occurred as a result of alcoholism, drug addiction or mental health problems. It also requires that the DUI defendant is willing to complete the substance addiction treatment program. If those conditions are met, the person is eligible for Deferred Prosecution as long as they have never been granted a Deferred Prosecution before in their lifetime. The required two-year substance addiction treatment program is quite rigorous and occurs in three phases. Additionally, two Alcoholics Anonymous or other self-help meetings per week are required for the full two years. The DUI defendant is also placed on supervised probation, which means that they may be required to meet on a regular basis with a probation officer and must pay for those services. |
I went to court, accepted the DUI Deferred Prosecution Program, and then went shopping around for a treatment center. I settled on Options in Lynnwood not far from the site of the old Tiki Hut.
Ironically, I had come full circle.
After meeting with the director of the treatment center, I signed a ream of legal papers, paid by check upfront, then handed a stack of literature to "catch up on" before starting Phase I (called "3x3x3") the following Monday. In 3x3x3, I was to attend a three hour session three days a week for three months. In addition for the next two years I had to attend two AA meetings a week and have a slip of paper signed each time to prove I'd been there. It was also understood that I was subject to drug testing at any time for any reason over the next two years. If I missed any sessions or AA meetings or failed a drug test I could lose my deferred prosecution status and rearrested. Do not pass Go, do not collect two-hundred dollars.
I remember going out to my truck and breaking down in tears. I wasn't crying because I was sad or afraid or angry or upset, but because I felt—no, I knew!—this was the opportunity I needed to truly turn my life around. I made a pact with myself right then and there that far exceeded the restrictions imposed by the Deferred Prosecution Program—(1) I would remain clean-and-sober for ten years, not just two, (2) I would find a job completely removed from the restaurant industry, and (3) I would go back to school and take any classes I needed to fulfill this goal. How or where or when this was going to happen, I didn't know. I didn't care. I only knew it was going to happen, somehow, someway.
Immediately I felt a huge weight lift away from me, all the years of guilt and deception and denial pulled squirming out of me like poison snakes. I was going to be clean again. Clean! And I was being handed a second chance to become the person I'd somehow misplaced along the way. I wasn't sure who this person was, but I couldn't wait to meet him.
On Sunday night I drank my last beer and smoked my last cigarette (I'd already stopped 'drugging' weeks earlier). On Monday morning I started the treatment program. The first week was the hardest, but eventually, slowly, gratefully, it got better.
At the beginning of my fourth week sober I awoke to a brand new world. It was downright freaky. Something had happened to me over night, but I wasn't sure what it was. I only knew it was wonderful. Everything seemed brighter, crisper, clearer, the colors, the sights, the sounds!
In group that morning, Dan, our fearless addiction counselor, met us all with a smile. "How's everyone feeling today?" he asked. "Fantastic!" I said. "Never better!" someone else chimed in. "Great!" "Marvelous!" And then Dan explained what had happened to us, that it takes three weeks to get completely clean, to get all the garbage flushed out of the system, for the brain chemistry to get back to working order. Because we'd stuck it out, because we were no longer using, we had all come back to 'normal' and there was no greater feeling!
"Wow!" we all said. Normal! Who'd have thought?
When I entered the program I was still bartending at the 13 Coins, although knew I had to get out as soon as possible. Because I liked personal computers (at the time I owned a desktop i486) and seemed to have a real knack for them, I decided I should try to find a door into the computer industry. Armed with little more than desire I eventually quit work and started taking C programming and C++ programming classes through the UW Extension program. As luck would have it, within two months after quitting the 13 Coins I was hired on at Cirrus Logic as a software tester with a three-month contract through the H. L. Yoh Agency. Three months turned into a year after which time I was hired on as a full-time employee.
At Cirrus Logic I was made the lead tester of video cards and device drivers for the new Microsoft Windows 95 operating system. This included doing WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) testing onsite at Microsoft in Redmond. In less than a year from bartending I found myself working off-and-on at Microsoft. I couldn't believe it. For the next three years, on evenings and weekends, I continued taking C/C++ classes and added other programming and software classes, including Microsoft Visual Basic, Access, Excel, Word, HTML web development, and Adobe Photoshop. It was hard and often frustrating work, but there was no turning back.
When Cirrus Logic decided it wanted to get out of the video card business and concentrate on audio, four of us formed a small software and hardware test company in partnership with IGX, a system software and driver development company. I found myself doing more and more WHQL work for third-party customers who wanted to 'pass' the Microsoft certification tests to earn permission to put the Windows logo on their various devices. I also started doing more web testing as more companies decided to set up shop on the Internet.
After I'd been with the new company for about eighteen months I was approached to teach a class in Visual Test for a technical school, InterTest. I was extremely nervous about standing up in front of a class and deliverying technical materials, but, to my amazement, discovered I was something of a natural. Mark, the owner of the technical school, apparently thought so as well because he approached me and asked if I'd want a job teaching full time. In addition I would be made the Technical Training Manager and would help produce the training manuals and proprietary training software. I jumped at the opportunity. I taught classes in software and web testing, HTML, Visual Basic, Visual Test, Javascript and CSS, PC Hardware, MS-DOS and Batch Programming, and Adobe Photoshop.
I worked at InterTest for a year when I was enticed to return to the test company to head its new web testing division. I was given a private office, my own team dedicated to website and web application testing, and several new test 'toys' to play with. I was at the top of the world, at the top of my game, and had no reason to suspect that something dark was looming just over the horizon.
