My Crazy Night

There are some problems that keep proving to be a real nuisance in my journey towards joining the Marine Corps. To start I have a drug offense from when I was a minor which holds me back from enlistment bonuses and certain jobs. Secondly, but more important is that I have an OVI and a use of a vehicle without permission hanging over my head. Those two are the reasons I can’t join tomorrow; because in order to join I have to be off probation, and to be off probation I have to pay off my fines, which are somewhere around $7800. This is the craziest night of my life’s story. Some would say that stealing a car is a bad thing, but I like to think of it as a good thing. During the summer after high school graduation, I slowly developed a drinking problem. Not only did I have a problem with stopping, I black out when I drank because my body doesn’t metabolize alcohol properly.

So with that said one of the many crazy nights my friends and I had, Adam, a kid I grew up with, told me about a party with some people that I don’t really get along with. But being a tough guy and knowing that my friends are tougher than anyone around I foolishly decided to go. Adam decided to drive because I didn’t have any gas so we took his Del Sol. We got to the apartment just in time for a couple of people fighting outside with the rest of the party watching, and some way or another I got sucked into it. So I proved myself because I had a reputation to uphold and I did this without even throwing a punch. I could have let it go and kept walking, but I knew that the kids that I didn’t get along with were watching and if I didn’t want to get beat up by a group of kids, I needed to prove that there was a reason no one messed with me. So I pushed the kid into the bushes in front of the apartment and acted like I was a tough guy, and made him leave the party on the spot. Everyone that watched showed signs of approval by looking and smiling, which cut the hostility in half.

I tried to get along with everyone that night because everyone was drinking and smoking. The living room was fogged out with weed smoke, and everyone was yelling because the music was so loud. Beer cans were scattered though the entire apartment you could that’s all they did was party. I kept running into people that I haven’t seen in a while but eventually made it to the little balcony on the second floor of the town house only to find Adam with a case of beer with him and a bag of weed with two other people out with him. The two people were a guy hitting on some ugly girl that had a bottle of Jose Curevo. After sweet talking her she kindly let me drink some and that’s the last thing I remember from that night. I blacked out and did my usual “shit-talking” about how tough I was, only to trade punches with some kid that missed my arm and hit my ribs and bruised them. It hurt so bad I came out of my black out for a second but fell back into it. From this point on I was told I then started to hit on someone’s girlfriend, which isn’t too hard to believe because I’m like that. But the problem was that it was the kid that owned the apartment and was the ring leader of the kids that already didn’t like me. So I got taken outside by three guys and they are talking about fighting, but won’t fight me because they know would have happened. They would have to deal with a kid that’s like my brother and he is the definition of badass because with it came down to it he would send someone to the hospital for me. So these wimps end up just yelling and calling me every name in the book but never laid a hand on me. They eventually chase me out, and my lame ass friend Adam waits forty-five minutes to look for me, and at this point it’s probably 3:30 am. Adam is an idiot so he just says screw it and goes home not giving me any thought after looking for me for about ten minutes.

At 6:30am the apartment manager of the complex I was partying at finds me in a ravine with a wrecked truck and I’m covered in mud and still drunk. I don’t remember much because I was still that drunk and my vision was blurry so I couldn’t see anything. But I do remember the manager said “you’re going to jail kid” and I asked why he replied “you stole that truck”. I was thinking in my head no way I never do anything like that when I black out. I stood up on the pavement and realized I was missing a shoe. The only thing running in my head was I have to get out of here before the cops come, but I was just too drunk the manger grabs me by the back of the neck and sits me down. I passed out on the curb and waited for the cops only to fail the sobriety field tests with flying colors. I then received a breathalyzer at the police station at 9:45 and blew a .158 BAC. I was sent to jail and sobered up at about 3:30pm. I ended up working up the nerve to call my mother, who was crying her eyes out and already had called a lawyer for me. Mr. Spears my lawyer was able to get me out of the jail the next day on a signature bond because my family is broke and couldn’t afford the $1000 bail.

After that I realized I had a problem, and decided to quit before I killed someone or myself. It is a shame that it took something so drastic to open my eyes, but I’m grateful no one got hurt. And even now a year and a half later I am still paying for it because now I can’t get enlistment bonuses and certain jobs are restricted to me just because a stupid night of partying. But if this didn’t happen to me I would probably still be drinking and I have heard stories about marines getting demoted or even dishonorable discharge for doing dumb things while drunk. So this turned out to be a bitter sweet story because of course it sucks that I have to pay out all of this money and have to be on probation but on the other side I never would have stopping drinking and could have killed someone or myself.