Garth George: Hard-core drink-drivers need therapy, not punishment

COMMENT

So the police have finally got around to targeting the main cause of our continuing drink-driving problems - those who are known to have one or more drink-driving convictions and who are also known still to be drinking and driving.

This is sure to be a lot more effective than the random roadblock approach which, since it has been around for so long, these days might net one in several hundred drivers. And most of the drivers who are found to be over the limit are probably those who have committed a rare indiscretion and had one or two more than they should.

They, like thousands who have gone before them, are unlikely to offend again and are probably horrified and genuinely embarrassed that they were indiscreet in the first place. They are not, and never have been, the problem.

Back in the days before breath-testing one had to be seriously sloshed and driving quite erratically to attract the attention of a police officer or a traffic cop.

And even after you were pulled up, if you could breathe shallowly, stand on one leg and walk a straight line, you were likely to be sent on your way. So those who were convicted back in those days deserved to be.

Which reminds me of sitting in the Invercargill Magistrate's Court many years ago covering a charge of defended driving while intoxicated. The police sergeant giving evidence was asked his opinion of the defendant's sobriety, to which he replied: "He was drunk, Your Worship."

Declaimed the magistrate (B.O. Nicholson, if I remember rightly):

He is not drunk who lies on the floor,

Can raise his arm and ask for more.

But he is drunk who prostrate lies,

And cannot drink and cannot rise.

But the advent of breath-testing, and later random roadblocks, put an end to hit-and-miss policing and thousands of people who would in years past never have seen the inside of a court have been lumbered.

Not that that is a bad thing because it has certainly reduced considerably the number of people who now deliberately drive when over the arbitrary limit.

Indeed, the campaigns against drink-driving seem to have altered entirely the Kiwi attitude to pub, club and party drinking, with even the most hairy-chested among us drinking light ales - and only a couple at that. I can hear the hoots of derision echoing down the decades from some of my old drinking mates who have long ago departed for that permanent party in the sky.

Since I came to terms with my own alcohol addiction - in the process learning much about the effects of alcohol on the mind and body - I have become persuaded that anyone who is convicted a second time for drink-driving has an incipient alcohol problem; and anyone convicted more than twice is probably addicted.

So the answer is not stiffer penalties, confiscation of vehicles or imprisonment. It would be much better for both the offenders and society if such people were directed by the courts into some sort of therapy.

For those convicted a second time, courses should be arranged at which the nature of the drug alcohol and its effects on the human organism are outlined in detail and information given on the early indications and symptoms of addiction.

That might not only have an effect on the number of drink-drivers, but could well turn some men and women, who have not crossed that invisible line between heavy drinking and addiction, back from the brink.

And I say in all sincerity: if just one man or woman was saved by such a course from descent into the depredations and horrors of alcoholism, whatever it cost would be worthwhile.

I am convinced that anyone who is convicted a third time for drink-driving, or anyone who exhibits a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, is already addicted to alcohol. If they weren't, they wouldn't be in court again; and wouldn't be able to drink that much and still be mobile.

Think about it: anyone who drinks himself (or herself) into that situation has to be sick in the head, which is what drinking too much booze too often and for too long makes you.

For such people fines, periodic detention, imprisonment, vehicle confiscation or any other conventional penalties are meaningless. Because it's never his or her fault. The addict will always blame someone or something else, irrespective of the evidence. That's part of the disease.

Recidivist drink-divers are not bad but mad. Thus they should be ordered by the courts to spend at least six weeks in an institution in which they would be confronted by their addiction, whether they like it or not, and shown how they can deal with it if they want to.

For nine out of 10 - if that - it will be a futile exercise but, again, if just one soul is saved from alcoholic destruction and death, then whatever it costs is worth it.

And when a drink-driver appears in court for the fourth time, there is but one answer - imprisonment. It is highly unlikely to do anything for the prisoner, but at least it will keep him or her off the roads for a spell.

* Email Garth George