<p>I hope the best for you and your wife but what concerns me is why didn’t your son or the gf call for a ride. We have a junior daughter and of course we don’t think she drinks but thats faith because when she stays over at a friends house we don’t know 100%. One thing we have always told her was that if she found herself in a situation where she felt a friend couldn’t drive or if she had a drop(!) of alcohol to call us and we promised not to lecture. Your son drinking at prom is not shocking but not having the guts to call you is sad. Only you can choose what to do from this point on but please let him pay some price over this, don’t be like the parents of that Duke kid who always got him off for his bad behavior.</p>
<p>Obviously we don’t know your son… But my thoughts are as follows:</p>
<p>Did anyone alert the school this was happening? If this happened at their prom they are not doing a very good job. Heck, my prom literally went from seven pm to seven am so that people wouldn’t be leaving and doing less then good things. Or did they leave the prom and go elsewhere to drink?</p>
<p>Also, if her friends provided the alcohol, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t drank before. He may have done it to fit in and impress her or them. Also, depending on the alcohol it might not have been seven drinks. I doubt they snuck cases of beer into prom. My guess is they were drinking liquor which would be a heck of a lot less drinks. Use your calculator and see how much say rum or whiskey when dumped into a coke affects your blood alcohol levels to get to that amount.</p>
<p>I’m pretty small but two or three drinks like that in a row and I know I’m way too impaired to drive. I actually have an app on my phone that calculated your bac based on what you weigh, what you drank and over how much time. I don’t drink often but its a nice app to have.</p>
<p>So sorry OP that your family is going through this. I agree with others that your son could benefit from counseling. You sound like you and your wife were decent parents who allowed your HS kid privileges like driving a car, going to prom, dating, etc. and that he abused your trust. Why did he feel the need to do that? Many of us have told the kids to call anytime, day or night, for a ride, no questions, never to drive with someone who has been drinking or taking drugs, but we must take it on faith that the kids listen. When they don’t listen, they not only go against our values as parents, but against the law, and what the community has decided is acceptable behavior. It is good to find out why the kid decided to behave in such a risky fashion. It may be an alcohol problem as others have said, or it may be that plus a few other problems. There are better ways to seek thrills than something that could end your life like a DUI.</p>
<p>Good luck to your family.</p>
<p>One other thing…does your son’s school have an athletic code of conduct? At our school this would get him kicked off the track team for the rest of the year and possibly keep him out of a fall sport as well.</p>
<p>I know this is really painful for your family but I think the more broad the consequences in every aspect of your son’s life, the more likely it is that he will use this incident as motivation to change his behavior going forward.</p>
<p>I would do what I could to keep my child out of jail but after that I would be absolutley fine with whatever punishment was handed out by the legal system. To me time in jail is a total game changer. The harsh reality is that your child made decisions that could have had serious consequences. Lucky for him nobody was seriously injured or died.</p>
<p>I would not allow any talk, from anyone - myself or my child, such as the girl friend and her group are bad influences, or someone else supplied the alcohol or the school should have monitored the prom better. All of these things may or may not be true but you son needs to be responsible for his own actions and role in the situation. He broke laws and endangered himself, his girl friend and the general public. There is no sugar coating the situation.</p>
<p>I am so sorry you are enduring this. Our school’s prom has police with beathilizers on site. Everyone who walks in blows. After prom keeps the kids corralled until morning. But, I’ve worked with 18 and 19 year olds for a long time. Where there’s a will . . .</p>
<p>I am also glad that everyone is safe.</p>
<p>I must agree, though, with the posters telling you that a kid who can function with .16 blood alchol level is not just an occasional drinker. He may not drink every weekend, but he’s been doing it enough to build up a tolerance. I am NOT saying that he is already an alcholic. Lots of young people abuse alcohol and do not progress to an addiction. And many others do. Please consider an evaluation, regardless of what’s happening with the DUI.</p>
<p>“Sorry to hear that, NCDad. Get a good lawyer ASAP.”</p>
<p>Second that. What the colleges need to know may very well depend on how this incident is adjudicated.</p>
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<p>I feel like you should tell him what he is being charged with. That is unfair to him and he needs to realize what he is being charged with and how important this situation is.</p>
<p>It doesn’t lessen the son’s responsibility, but let us admit that the GF was also responsible for her own behavior. She was also drunk, and she decided to get into the car. He didn’t force her. SHE could just as easily have been the one behind the wheel. SHE could have called her parents for a ride, too.</p>
<p>I have seen SO many cases where a bunch of drunken teens get in a car, have an accident, someone dies, and the parents of the kid who died want the driver strung up. Their kid was also drunk. Their kid made the decision to get in the car, not call for a ride. On other occasions their kid probably WAS the drunk driver, and by sheer luck didn’t kill someone. I can only imagine their pain, but still.</p>
<p>I started giving my son the “call us anywhere, any time, we will come and get you, no questions asked” mantra when he was, I think, in 7th or 8th grade. AFAIK, it was not put to the test. If he did drink in HS–and I don’t think he did, because he disapproved of the partiers–it would have been on one of the occasions when he and a bunch of friends stayed at a friend’s house, gaming. They stayed overnight and didn’t drive. There were responsible parents whom we knew there. What more can you do?</p>
<p>I’m thankful that we’ve gotten this far–he’s 23–but I don’t consider us out of the woods yet, by any means.</p>
<p>You will need to decide on the financial aspect - cost of lawyer, increases insurance coverage once he gets his licence back - and who pays. You might also consider giving him the “you’ve lost our trust” talk, especially as regards to sleep away college. Good luck.</p>
<p>Hi there, long time lurker…but felt I needed to respond to the OP.</p>
<p>Let me preface this by stating I live in NC and I am a parent who has gone through a similar issue with my child (age 16 at the time it happened). </p>
<p>I know all too well the horror you felt and probably still do. It has been a few years since this happened to our family, but we still have to re-live this quite often sad to say. The main thing I wanted to mention is that NC is one of the few states that treat 16 year olds and older as adults. This will not be handled in juvenile court and records will not be sealed unless you can get them expunged (that is a separate process after adjudication of the original case). All of this means, the mugshot and court documents will be available when background checks are run. Your attorney can provide you more information on expungement and if it can be applied in this case as the laws have changed within the last year. </p>
<p>I have seen a few DUI’s reduced in our state down to reckless driving, which in itself is a misdemeanor. As others have said, I do not think this will cause problems getting into college, but it could cause problems afterwards when trying to obtain licensure or get jobs as it has to be reported. Not sure what field your son is looking at, but if it something like doctor, nurse, lawyer, etc… problems could arise in the future. This is what we are dealing with now and it is not easy.</p>
<p>I am truly sorry about your situation as I have lived it. But I also wanted to post to make you aware of some of the things we learned and are still living through this many years later. Good luck to you and your son.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to you and your son. I, too, am a parent of a young adult who received a DUI this year. He was 18. He knew not to drive, we told him not to drive before he left home that night. But, stupidity intervened and he left his party to go pick up friends who had called him because they were drunk and their party was busted by cops. He drove right into an area swarming with cops that had just been busted for an underage drinking party. Stupid.</p>
<p>I still cry even as I write this note, thus my wanting to reach out and respond to you. To give you hope and to let you know you are not alone. My child was a good student, actually an honor student. He made a very poor decision that will be with him the rest of his life. We, as parents, can only guide and teach. We cant protect them nor can we make their decisions. But we can be there when they fall. Stand by your son, let him know you are there and that you believe in him. </p>
<p>Do not let this single act of stupidity define your son. The process is long and difficult. There will be lots of what? along the way and lots of tears. It just doesnt go away and just when you think you have heard the worst, something else will top it. So, just buckle down for a very long ride and be the rock your child desperately needs right now.</p>
<p>To answer your question about college, though. If your child has not been convicted when he applies, he can honestly answer NO to the questions have you ever been convicted of a misdemeanor on the applications. So, my advice is if the lawyer is planning to delay the trial, to have your son prepared and ready to apply to colleges sooner rather than later. This initial burst of sadness/anxiety/fear will pass and things will calm down before the trial, so have him start working on his apps during that lull in activity. </p>
<p>As a parent, this could affect student loans though, so if you are guiding him, please dont assume that student loans will be handed out. Have him only apply to places you can afford.</p>
<p>If the time comes and you do not feel your child is ready for college or has not learned his lesson, then you can rescind any offers, defer them, or just not accept them. But, applying early will give him hope and it will give him something to focus on this summer.</p>
<p>Good kids do make poor choices. The world is a very different place than it was when I grew up. We didnt have MADD or these harsh DUI laws. I was very naïve and unprepared for all I learned. You have my support and prayers.</p>
<p>Sorry to go off track, but to the above poster, if you told him not to leave home then it sounds like you knew he was drinking? Or was this at college?</p>
<p>To the OP, good luck.</p>
<p>I am really finding it difficult to figure out where/when the son got drunk. I thought all proms were pretty closely supervised, we even have breathalyzers at ours.</p>
<p>If there is no post-prom school function, then whose house/yard were they partying in? Sounds like lots of blame to go around.</p>
<p>The timing has to be right. Sometimes there are months of classes ala AA so you want to start before he goes away </p>
<p>My friends d had community service and group meetings. I would actually contact alanon in your area. The meetings got me thru being angry at my husband. Didn’t need many, but in the crisis moment it was helpful to share with been there done that group.</p>
<p>Your son may or not may have a serious drinking problem. He could have chugged very quickly then drove. He could have been iffy starting to drive then it hit him. How fast above the limit was he going? He could have been five or twenty above the limit. That’s another area to have checked out. Anything to have any charges lowered or dropped can help. There are thresholds of speeding. They often throw in extra charges to negotiate.</p>
<p>My husband was told he was speeding. He wasn’t. They made a difference. He did have to do community service, orange vest style ten Saturday’s in a row. </p>
<p>What you will discover thru this process is how to be strong, care for each other and move forward.</p>
<p>1964mom told her son before he left home to not drink at the party he was going to.</p>
<p>I think 1964mom posted some excellent advice about slowing the whole process down. Given the state of our court system this might not be too hard to do. Then get those apps in early in the Fall. Further, while I think Calmom makes some good points, you need to determine what his history is with drinking. If you can honestly go into court and say that this was a stupid mistake made by a young man who had no previous experience with drunkenness, then perhaps a judge might cut him some sort of break. If you start voluntary programs for mental health assessments then you are going in with the premise that there is a serious problem. The judge will have no choice but to act accordingly. From what you post about your son, I am not convinced that there is any serious addiction problem here.</p>
<p>I would follow your attorney’s recommendation re: seeking mental health/alcohol abuse assessment. I have worked with many folks with DUIs and usually it is helpful to have an assessment done, if done by a qualified professional and it shows a problem, so be it, follow the recommendations, if shows there is no history, this demonstrates that your family took an earnest approach to a serious problem.</p>
<p>I worked in the substance abuse field for a good part of my professional life, and specifically with the public health data. I can tell you that it is extremely, extremely rare that a teenage DUIer, caught for the first time, had not been drinking previously, and usually for a long time. The average high schooler who drinks (whether they DUI or not) started at age 12-13. </p>
<p>Most teenage DUIs in zero tolerance states (like my own) are at .02, .03, .04. A .16 would be really serious stuff. Now mind you, that’s just the data, and there are plenty of exceptions outside the standard deviation, but it is even rarer.</p>
<p>And it has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Alcoholics are not stupid, they are alcoholic. They aren’t linked conditions. </p>
<p>I think you should go in with the assumption that he has a serious ‘medical’ condition, and then perhaps happily it will be proven otherwise. (And the overwhelming number of alcoholics will tell you they don’t have a drinking problem…)</p>
<p>You don’t know what the circumstances were of the case that the judge reviewed right before yours comes up. It could have been vehicular manslaughter- my town had a recent case of a 16 year old thrown from the car driven by her 18 year old BF-- he walked away without as much as a scratch and she died instantly.</p>
<p>So don’t hunker down and assume that the only thing that’s relevant is what you think/feel/know to be the truth. Don’t assume that just because your son says he doesn’t have a drinking problem that this is the case; don’t assume that a judge is going to look at your son and see model citizen who had a temporary lapse in judgement. You just don’t know. As much as the legal system relies on facts, cases like yours require so much intuition and empathy. Maybe the judge will decide your S has shown maturity in how he’s handled things; maybe the judge will look at you and decide he’s tired of parents showing up with two objectives- preserve college admissions, and make sure the kid doesn’t spend a night in jail.</p>
<p>So you don’t know. Better to explore every possibility which ranges from “My son has a substance abuse issue and we are going to get him help” to “this was a one-off stupid decision and we are all so thankful he was caught, nobody was hurt, and he’s learned a tremendous lesson from it”. Don’t walk into court assuming you know the judge’s state of mind, or how many tearful proceedings he or she has sat through which presented the exact same fact pattern as your son’s case does, except that someone was sitting in a wheelchair (or was dead) throughout the proceeding.</p>