Thirty seconds. That’s all it takes for the realization to sink in. See, this is the moment time freezes, and if you are even coherent enough to do so, you comprehend that you’ve got no way out. These are the last precious seconds: pulled over on the side of the road, shaking hands made visible by those blue and red lights that are surely too blinding to be real. The officer takes his time, practically strutting to the driver-side window, and why wouldn’t he? He isn’t the one with everything to lose. The ear-piercing siren slices your dreams and aspirations of the future into slivers so tiny they are basically nonexistent. And this is the best-case scenario. In far too many cases, you don’t even get your thirty seconds of realization, you wake up in a hospital, or even worse, you don’t wake up at all.

I thought it would never happen to me. People do it all the time, right? So what if I was barely even drunk? So what if I was the most fit to drive out of my group of sloppy, intoxicated friends? No excuse makes it okay, I know that now. Not one of those factors were taken into consideration as I stumbled through a sobriety test, attempting my ABC’s, struggling to remember the letter that comes after P. When I was asked to walk a straight line, heel-toe, heel-toe, I tripped over myself, attempting to keep both my balance and my dignity. I was handcuffed, the officer reading me my rights and putting me into a cruiser; I drove my own self-destruction. At the station, I blew the breathalyzer and my stoach dropped as the officers announced that they were sorry, but the numbers don’t lie and no matter how I felt, I was twice the legal limit.

They gave me minute after minute to collect myself so I wouldn’t be sobbing for the camera, then they snapped my mugshot. The humiliation I felt was surreal, I remember thinking that it had to be a bad dream. As the officer called my parents, informing them where I was, and what exactly I had done, the shame I felt was and still is indescribable.

  I never imagined this could ever happen to me.

I’m a good student, a good person, someone my parents could be proud of. I distinctly remember the moment when I tried to explain to an officer that the police station had nothing on the shame I was walking into at home. I wasn’t too far off in assuming that either. I couldn’t look my parents, my siblings, in fact anyone, in the eye. The ride home was unbearable. The silence seemed unbreakable until all of a sudden it wasn’t: my sister, my mother, everyone was screaming. I had no words to defend myself or answers to the recurring questions: “Was it worth it?” “How could you do something so irresponsible?” “Why didn’t you just call someone, anyone?” All I could say was how big of a mistake I had made and how sorry I was, and that failed to not only justify my actions, but to bring me any solace.

At first not many people knew about my situation. Yet, as time went on, more and more people whispered, and before I knew it, I was getting all sorts of questions. The super ignorant kids will still, to this day, shout insults about it towards me in the halls. I’ve tried so hard to avoid it, all of it, but unfortunately I can’t hide. Whether it’s legally, financially, or socially, this will take a toll on every aspect of my life. I have had to come to terms with the fact that I could have killed someone; I could have killed myself. It’s something that is impossible to escape. Something that I never believed could have happened to me.

You probably think it couldn’t happen to you. It can, and it did, because I am you. You and me–nothing separates us, except maybe you won’t be me. Maybe you’ll learn. I’m begging you: don’t be me.