How to stop a mate doing it

[moochy]

Good Afternoon

I registered on this forum in order to ask how I can possibly stop a good mate of mine from Drink Driving..

We all enjoy our nights out but my mate takes it way too far, he's never aggressive or anything when he's drunk but last Friday night was the tipping point for many of us that go out.

We found out that after 18 pints of Caffreys, 10 JD & Cokes and various shots of liquers that he actually drove the 3 miles home. All that started at 5pm and ended at 4am.

This has got to stop, if he'd hit anyone or anything then he would never have known about it.

Even last night, we finished work at 5pm, gave me a lift home and he went straight to the pub, another mate and I went to the snooker club and on our return we saw that his car was still at the pub, when he gave me a lift in to work this morning he said that he didn't leave the pub until 10pm.

He goes to the pub after work every night of the week straight after work, spends virtually all day Saturday and all day Sunday in the pub too, he then brags about drinking additional bottles of wine etc when he gets home but some of us don't actually believe he does that most of the time and just feel that he wants to brag about how much he drinks.

Now I'm expecting responses such as 'A good mate would report him, would tell him straight etc etc' but whilst we havn't gone as far as reporting him we have all told him how stupid he is for driving whilst drunk.

My take on it is that if he is stupid enough to do it then he will have to face the consequences, but it's not just him that would suffer..

So would his wife, his three kids and god forbid the poor sod/family of the person that he hits.

What's more frustrating is that he's intelligent enough, knows his job inside out but jees, this persistant drinking and then driving home has got to just stop.

If anyone knows an organisation, website or anything useful that would help us all put a stop to this I would be extremely grateful.

Regards

Mooch

 

[neverwillagain]

Make him read some of the posts on here where people have come very very close to losing everything. If that did not make him think then the only thing that will stop him is when he gets caught. Most of the people here I think made a genuine mistake and did not intentionally drive with a huge amount of drink aboard. Try it anything is worth a try.

 

[The Village Idiot]

Hi Mooch,

It is very noble of you to have posted you message on here. Your friend does indeed very much need help, before its to late.

I agree with NWA, try to print off or show him some of stories posted on here, by people who have been caught. But that might not be enough. There was a series of drink driving advert campaigns they showed us on the rehab course, even the hardened drinker and class joker was shocked at these campaigns, truly shocking, but very effective and true to life. You might be able to find these adverts on you tube, if you type in drink driving adverts from around the world.

On a equally serious note, what about your friends drinking habits, sounds like he needs serious help there too. If I was you, I would not go on these sessions with him after work, harsh it may sound, but what happens if he does end up getting caught, or even worse hurting or killing someone after a session that you were on with him. How would you feel? However I am not blaming you in any way shape or form for your friends habits, you have done the right thing by coming on here and asking for advice. More people need a friend like you, that is prepared to ask questions on their behalf.

I wish you all the best in dealing with this matter, and pray that you find a peaceful conclusion to this problem.

Regards,

TVI.

 

[signman]

Unfortunately it appears that because he`s not been caught so far he seems to think hes untouchable.

Its also very assuring he has a mate like you whos concerned enough to want to help before he ruins his life.

More than that, its not just drink driving which appears to be his problem but drink itself.

What would be useful for him to know/find out is the amount of units in each drink and how long it takes to get out of his system.

For example, as a rough guide, 10 pints of caffreys is 26 units of alcohol, 10 JD`S is 10 units. There alone is 36 units of alcohol which from the time of starting to drink will take a minimum of 36 hours to get completely out of his system. The legal limit for a man in the uk is roughly 5 units for him to drive. So lets say he started at 12 midday on Sat he shouldn`t be anywhere near the car until at least 7pm on the sunday. Even then he would only just be on the limit of driving. With you saying that he would do the same on sunday as well then all he his doing is topping up the units in his body before they have had a chance to leave it. Therefore if he started at 12pm on sunday again he would already have roughly seven units in his body, add on another 36 units for the caffreys and JD again and that makes it roughly 7am on the Tuesday before he can drive legally (providing no more drink in between times)

We get to learn all this once we`ve been caught and done the drink drive course. Unfortunately people never caught do not realise they are still driving illegally the day after.

hope this helps. http://www.barnet.nhs.uk/files/trustuploads/drinking_alcohol_units_table.pdf

 

[moochy]

Wow

I was expecting to get quite a hard time from any responses to my concerns, I say that after reading quite a bit of the forum relating to sentencing, abit naive so my apologies.

Every response is pretty much spot on...

He does feel Untouchable.
He is a Class Joker.
He is a Hardened Drinker.
He won't admit he drinks too much.

Unfortunately our friendship, whilst strong is not of a touchy feely nature, by that I mean it is very laddish, mates going down the pub each Friday night for a laugh and a joke, I get a lift into work with him daily and we all have the odd game of snooker. He goes to the pub 'EVERY' night, the car stinks of booze every morning and he's always hungover and at the weekends he's there pretty much all day.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is How do you approach giving him help and showing him stuff, such as articles on this website, you tube videos etc.

He would just laugh it off and tell me he hasn't got a problem and tell me to keep my nose out thus affecting our friendship.

I have thought of going via his wife, there is history there in that she hates the fact that he drinks so much but 'appears' to do nothing.. again this is fraught with complications.

I am though going to speak to my other mates and tell them about this submission to the website and see if there is anything we can do collectively.

All of us are fed up with it and do not want to see our mate, lose his life, his job, family or be responsible for hurting another family or their future.

Our last resort will most certainly be reporting him to the police, I don't feel confident enough and I'm sure neither do the rest of us feel confident enough to do that without doing our absolute best to find another way.

Regardless of what happens I would like to thank anyone that has or can assist us in getting this out into the open and finally resolved.

Thank You

Mooch

 

[signman]

Good luck to you.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Doggy]

Don't report him to the police.

Rather than stressing about "changing him", what if you just cool off your friendship a little? Stop taking lifts with him because you know he's probably over the limit. Let him know you don't feel safe if he's been drinking the night before.

From my limited knowledge with families living/dealing with alcoholics, forcing the issue to make them stop isn't advised and usually worsens the situation. It's about supporting yourself and taking proactive steps of your own until the person is ready to deal with their problem.

You aren't his carer. If you just stop accepting lifts from him...that MAY make him think about his actions, and DEFINITELY help you as you won't be in danger of getting in a smash because of his drunk driving.

 

[new_pedestrian]

Are your other mates aware of what he's doing? Maybe bring it up with them if not, so that someone's actually said out loud that what he's doing is stupid. Once it's been said you might find that you and the rest of the group all calling him a d**k might at least make him think twice about it just for reasons of social acceptance.

If a bunch of you all agree that what he's doing is idiotic, you could go a step further and ask him for his keys if you can see he's had too much to drink. If he says no then at least you know you tried to stop him, and he knows that his mates don't approve of what's going on.

I think most people would hesitate to call the police on a friend - even though we might actually be doing them a favour in the long run by stopping them or some unlucky innocent from being killed or seriously injured in an accident. Strange how our minds work about that sort of thing.

In the end it's not you who's committing the offence so why should you be in a position where you have to navigate this sort of moral maze? You're obviously trying to be a good friend, but it sounds like the other guy doesn't give two hoots about how you and the rest of his mates feel about it.

If he says to you to keep your nose out of it, he isn't taking into account that you're his friend and care what happens to him, or that you're a human being and don't want to be put in this position. Who's the bad friend in that situation?