KEY POINTS:
She's smart, attractive, well educated - and well aware of the dangers of drink-driving.
But 27-year-old Melissa Rothwell is the unlikely face of the drink-driver who shocked police and the country last weekend when she was found slumped at the wheel of her black Renault, breath-testing a near record five times over the limit after a concerned motorist snatched her keys off her so she couldn't continue driving.
The former Ernst and Young and Vodafone marketing professional is facing a jail sentence after she drank half a bottle of vodka and several glasses of wine before beginning the long journey over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, along the waterfront to her mother's home, intending to head for Hamilton to "dry out" for the week.
But now Melissa wants to tell her story as a warning, and publicly apologise to New Zealand motorists for the havoc she could have wreaked, drunk behind the wheel of her car.
Mostly she wants to thank Bob Pennell, the driver who followed her weaving car for 4 kilometres and at one point watched her nearly collide with a bus before taking her keys to keep her off the road.
"I said, 'Bloody hell that was close', and I mean amazingly close... I was expecting to see the whole side of her car gone, but she went back to the middle lane and went straight across in front of us," Pennell told journalists last week. Melissa, who remembers little of her journey, is grateful for his help.
"I want to say thank you to him for his actions for taking me off the road and taking my keys off me before I hurt anyone else or myself," she told the Herald on Sunday in an emotional interview yesterday.
"I don't ever want to put myself in this position again, it hit home and has really smacked me over the head. I can't bear the thought of what could have happened.
"I was in the absolute wrong."
Melissa's painful apology comes as police warn that more women loaded with alcohol are getting behind the wheel. Auckland road policing manager Heather Wells said there was an increase in the number of women being caught with very high breath tests. "A couple of years ago it used to be men," she is reported as saying. "Now we are finding a lot more women coming through."
Two females hold a place in the list of top 11 Kiwi drink-drivers - last year a Bay of Plenty woman blew 2200mcg and in 2005 a Tasman woman recorded 1952mcg.
Melissa's story while shocking is not uncommon - she had been through alcohol rehabilitation after her drinking became out of control following a separation from her fiance and a few weeks later the sudden death of her father.
Last Friday, after two days of sustained drinking, she said she hit rock bottom and wanted only to get to Hamilton, away from the temptations of Auckland.
Melissa says she had been drinking over a six-hour period that day, mixing vodka with orange in a container to drink while she completed a few errands - including taking her car for a warrant of fitness.
Although she says she does not usually drink-drive - preferring to take buses for transport and live in apartments close to the city - she cannot believe she recorded a breath-alcohol reading of 1943mg per litre of breath - nearly five times the 400mg legal limit.
"I was blown away, I honestly didn't think I had drunk that much, but that is kind of the nature of [alcoholism]," she says.
"I had been drinking the day before and the day before that - it just tops you up."
Rothwell was raised in the wealthy Auckland suburb of Parnell and attended Corran School - driving drunk was something she remembers being discussed around the family dinner table.
"I was brought up to know that it was not okay, that it was something you didn't do."
On Friday she was heading for Hamilton where she was to spend time getting sober at the house of a semi-retired couple whom she has known since birth. She would also attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Yesterday she was straining to remember details of her drunken drive across Auckland: "I can only really remember what I've read in the newspapers," she concedes. "But I do remember actually needing to wake up a few times, although it's hazy thinking back.
"I would say at that point I would have been thinking that I would go and have a lie down at mum's for a couple of hours then go [to Hamilton] because I would be fine."
Her next memory is being at Auckland central police station where she was breath-tested and questioned.
"They were really surprised by the reading, one of them was sympathetic but the other one was just perturbed with me which he had every right to be."
The Hamilton man who is supporting Rothwell said he wasn't upset when he got the call to say she was delayed because of being caught by police.
"I've seen it all before," the man, who asked not be named, said. "Amazingly as it may seem, the thing a lot of people don't understand about alcoholics is that they have to hit rock bottom and lose just about everything before they do the u-turn."
Embarrassed by her actions, Rothwell says the time has come to turn her life around, for good.
The last week has been spent reflecting on just how much of an idiot she was last Friday.
"I am not sleeping on the streets and I haven't lost my friends and family but for me this is pretty bad and this is my rock bottom.
"A lot of people say that you have to lose absolutely everything and be sniffing glue from a paper bag. That's not me, sure, but you don't need to be that, to be an alcoholic with problems."
And she has a message for New Zealand.
"I am completely remorseful and regret my actions unreservedly from Friday. If you suspect someone has a problem with alcohol then get them help. Alcoholism and addiction is a disease which we inherit through our genes and we can't go it alone."
