Tricia Kight, 41, could not have made it easier for prosecutors. First she struck another vehicle seriously injuring the other driver. Then she was found to have five times the legal limit for blood alcohol level. Then, as the EMT attempted to treat her, she grabbed a beer to keep drinking. When the EMT pried the beer from her hands, she reportedly grabbed another beer.
Kight received one year and 10 days in prison — a sentence that the permanently injured victim may view as light. She will understandably be required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at least three times per week.
Police report that Kight had not only consumed a 12-pack of beer, but she had also taken two Percocets. She was reportedly on the way home from purchasing more beer but never made it home due to the accident.
The woman struck by Kight suffered extensive neck injuries and now has screws and plates in her neck.
Source: Scripps Media
Lobotommy: a person who drinks to excess on a regular basis can have a much higher BAC than people who don’t and still be standing, so don’t doubt the test results. Their liver enzyme systems have adapted to become much more efficient than those of non-heavy drinkers. That is, until their liver starts turning to scar tissue–cirrhosis.
@NickS
Well, I read books! I have a half dozen or so in progress right now.
Life by Keith Richards
A Study of History by Toynbee
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon
Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Authorized Adaptation by Ray Bradbury and Ron Wimberly Illustrator
Mugged by Ann Coulter
Demonic by Ann Coulter
Glittering Images by Camille Paglia
An Anthology of American Negro Literature by Sylvestre Watkins, editor
Gilgamish by John Gardner and Hohn Maier
Inventions of the March Hare (about T S Eliot’s other poems and doggerel) by Christopher Ricks
Plus my Acoustic Guitar magazines. And, I have just ordered:
Sexuality and Homosexuality by Arno Karlen
and Threesomes by Arno Karlen (hey, it came up under his name and looked interesting!)
This is not even counting all the poetry books I have sitting around with book marks in them. Like
The Body Electric collection with intro by Harold Bloom
Neurotica (Jewish Writers on Sex) edited by Jules Bukiert
And First Verses edited by Carmela Ciuraru
which book had this very sad poem in it, which you should not read unless you don’t mind crying. I read it again a few weeks ago when my oldest cat died. I still miss him sooo much and still just cry whenever I think about him:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick – true. No one can get help against his will. Even if he was dragged kicking and screaming to AA, he would get no benefit unless at some point he became open to the idea. Maybe it would be a moving story by another participant. Maybe it would be fatigue from wrecking his life. That’s the big question – how to help those who are in denial. It’s very hard to see someone wrecking his life with both hands and refusing to see that they have a problem. I’ve seen it before and it’s a very helpless feeling.
IMO, both Paul and DBQ are correct. When I worked in Leavenworth, AA was court ordered for all inmates w/ alcohol/drug issues. Guys who did not want to be there hurt the group. But, there were the occasional breakthroughs DBQ mentioned. A guy who did not want to be there but was moved by the stories told by group members. There can be no recovery w/o the person wanting to get better. That is for certain.
I finished a book recently by a sportswriter I like, Tim Colishaw. He’s a columnist for the Dallas paper and on ESPN. He talks candidly about his alcoholism while also discussing his professional career. It’s a good book if you like sports and this guy. What is relevant is his not going through AA. Colishaw is an atheist and just couldn’t do it. He knew it’s effectiveness, seeing AA save his father’s life. Colishaw is a rarity. He’s been sober since 2009 w/o any support. But, he also realizes he is just a vodka/cranberry away from falling.
Does anyone else here read books?? I continuously mention books I’ve read and NEVER see anyone else tell us what they’re reading. I would love to know what folks are reading and their reviews of it.
Isaac, I agree. But, I think any recovery needs to include a group of fellow alcoholic/addicts. It doesn’t need to be AA, but it needs to be something other than just a shrink. Alcoholic/addicts can con a shrink. You can’t con an alcoholic/addict. I see that to be the key to AA’s success.
My husband, before I knew him…. in his youth, was sent to mandatory AA meetings as a result of some really stupid drunken stupor stunts.
He said that this experience literally saved him from going further down the wrong path. Even though it wasn’t voluntary, he got a great deal of help from the experience and highly recommends it to anyone who would be willing to face themselves.
The higher power in AA can be a rock if that is what you want it to be. Personally, I think AA or rehab of any type should be voluntary since you will get more out of it.
There is a great scene in ‘Days of Wine and Roses’, where Jack Lemmon goes crazy when he can’t find where he hid is back up bottle. That pretty much parallels this woman’s problem.
Nick
AA has been a god send to many alcoholics. There are many other, non religious, approaches that have proved as good and even more successful. Also, one doesn’t have to be religious to understand that there is stuff that is more powerful than thou.
BFM, Comedy=Tragedy + Time. We need more time, IMO.
Clearly a case of no beer left behind – a beer is a terrible thing to waste.
Bob Morris, God bless you on your recovery. What has been the key to your success, if you care to share.
Under current case law trends, this woman has a right under the Establishment Cause to refuse to attend AA because it speaks of a higher power. So, there’s that hypocrisy vis a vis the contentious issues we have discussed recently. An alcoholic can permanently injure or kill someone and refuse AA on religious grounds. But, a wedding vendor cannot. Anyone else see an inequity here?? “Bueller, Bueller, Bueller, anyone, anyone, Bueller, anyone.”
On the issue @ hand. There is an epidemic, w/ women being the bigger abusers, of opiates and alcohol. It is a double whammy that makes rehab VERY difficult. Even top notch rehab facilities have a batting average below .100 w/ this ilk. She needed a much stiffer sentence. 10 years would have been prudent. But realize, she will be a problem after release w/ a 90% certainty. The 10 years just takes some time off of her life where she can’t injure someone else. That’s all.
Sounds like this woman is in the grips of a serious alcohol addiction, and possibly prescription drug addiction, too. She is probably an alcoholic just to have the tolerance to be semi ambulatory with a BAC that high. We lost a member of our family as a teenager to a drunk driver. I hope that she gets help before she kills someone, because that’s a wound that never heals.
Alcoholics may have struggling with their addiction, but they don’t have to drive. That’s a whole separate decision that says everyone else’s life is worth less than that drink.
I’ve been clean and sober many years and once tested at .32 and know people who tested at more than .4. Yes, .4 would probably kill a non-alcoholic however, like with heroin, the tolerance builds way up.
Very sad.
five times the legal limit in VA is a BAC of .4, which is at least comatose, if not lethal. So I’m skeptical of that bit of the story.
A friend of mine drank himself to death, well before he made fifty. He came from an affluent background, was very clever, and had it all. Alcohol snuck up on him. His friends told a story of one of the times he collided with the police while driving when drunk. Back in the sixties in California it was not unusual for young people to drive with a beer cooler on the floor.
Once, he drove off of an embankment and crashed his car down a gully. When the police had extricated him from the vehicle and were leading him up to the ambulance, he struggled away from them to retrieve the half empty bottle of whiskey he remembered he had left in the car. What always struck me was that he as well as others told the story as if it had some merit, as if he were a rogue or something. Booze is way, way, way more serious than pot.
Maybe she didn’t want the beer to get warm before she had a chance to drink it.
AA? Really?