It had been such a nice day. Relatives were visiting from out of town and I was enjoying myself when I received a text from my youngest daughter Courtney. "I have some bad news. I got a DUI and will have to serve some jail time. I went out with some friends and had a couple of glasses of wine, then a cop stopped me because of my expired tag . . ." Courtney had been living in a half way house in Phoenix, Arizona and was about to move out to live with her boyfriend. She had gone out to dinner with some women who had graduated from the program and thought since she never had abused alcohol, it would be alright to have a drink or two.
I was numb with shock. Courtney had been in the rehab/halfway house for just over a year. She was attending NA meetings regularly and actually liking them. (Or so she said.) It felt like a never ending reoccurring nightmare. It felt like instant depression. The only thing I could think to text back was "how could you?" I turned my phone on silent and continued my conversation with my brother in law, acting like nothing happened and wondering when would I get up the nerve to tell my husband.
Her story was that the policeman told her she was driving through gang territory and it was an area where people went to buy drugs. She let them search her car and purse since she had nothing to hide. The officer thought he smelled alcohol on her breath and it was downhill from there.
Courtney was taken to jail. The police let her leave her car in the parking lot of a shopping center instead of impounding it. She says they did not book her but drew some blood. It took five attempts before a vein was hit and her arm was left bruised. That was the first time anyone had been able to draw blood from her in over ten years. She would have a panic attack whenever a needle was pointed in her direction and her vein would collapse. I guess the wine helped keep the vein open.
The police gave her a ride back to rehab and since it was late enough no one there noticed. Courtney didn't want anyone to know.
At her hearing she had no legal representation. Courtney thought that the public defenders "are stupid" and she had no money for a decent attorney. Her conviction of an Extreme DUI, first offense, got her 30 days in jail with work release. She would have to spend the entire weekend in jail then be out from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday so she could go to her part time job.
She would be going to tent city in three days.
Of course I had heard of tent city in Phoenix. Inmates wore stripes and pink underwear and live in tents no matter what the weather is like. They are fed peanut butter sandwiches. I felt sick to my stomach to think of my daughter there. My husband had to be told and I decided that the sooner the better but I would wait until he got home from work the next day and after our relatives had left.
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