The Random Odds of Drinking and Driving

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I am not sure that I believe that the Goddess is involved in every little random happening. Predestination has always sounded like garbage to me. What is the point in running the movie if You wrote, directed and controlled every part of it? I can’t give a big philosophical reason for why I think that is not the way things are. It is an intuitive feeling; the same type of intuitive feeling that tells me there is a real Goddess and gives me that sense of awe and wonder when She interacts with me.

Sheer, blind, random chance plays a role in things too.

I’ve been thinking about drinking and driving. I used to do a lot of it. How much? Way back when I figured out a rough estimate of about five thousand times. If I ever run for office, here is the ammo against me: I admit that I committed the crime of driving under the influence five thousand times, knowing it was a crime.

I was involved in three alcohol related accidents and I was drinking each time. Each of these wrecks totaled the car I was in. It is kind of weird though, how circumstance plays out. The first one I hardly remember at all and I don’t know if I was blitzed, buzzed or hardly affected. But for the second and third wreck, I had very little to drink, like between two and four beers each of those nights. One of those nights I had worked a sixteen hour shift before driving an hour, having the beer and driving an hour back. I fell asleep at the wheel and parked in a tree.

The worst wreck was one night after playing a game of Risk. I was driving my friend, Jayne, home. We stopped at a red light at Davis and Park Row (for those of you who know Arlington, TX). I looked both ways and then I went. This vehicle came from the west going so fast I never saw it and hit the engine on the passengers side, almost shearing the front end off. The car that hit me came to a stop on its side like a quarter of a mile away. The girl who had been driving that car was on speed. Nobody ever even asked if I had been drinking. Jayne later told me (when I asked) that she felt I was sober and there was nothing I could have done.

I walked out of all of these accidents without a scratch and I don’t think the Goddess had anything to do with it. A miracle of physics saved me.

I have to believe that.

I know a woman in AA whom I will refer to as N. She is a thin, kind of shy type of woman I think—she reminds me of the stereotypical librarian. N. is a sweet lady. If I had kids, I would trust her to watch them, no question.

One night she drove drunk and killed a teenage girl.

In order to believe that I was spared from those wrecks by special intervention from the Goddess, I have to believe that the Goddess chose not to save that girl. A god who would let one person die and another one live like that would be, to me, a cruel god. It is hard to imagine that my life has any more merit than that girl’s. I don’t think the Goddess plays games like that with us.

She created this universe and this world and she let go. I think that She, like us, is often amazed at how things turn out. I believe that She shares our joy and excitement when things like the landing on the moon occur. I think that when Ghandi or Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King win without violence she is proud. I intuitively know she is dismayed by our casual cruelty to one another.

Sometimes I wonder if the laws of physics stymie Her. Why not? It seems reasonable to me. We humans build many things bigger than ourselves that we have input into the control of, but are not able to shift the basic operation of. Perhaps as a consequence of creation She can only have indirect input into this world.

That’s kind of meaningless philosophical meandering. I think that for us, the most important reason why She does not directly interfere is simply free will. If She played a direct role in many human events She would be negating free will. That is both a gift and a challenge from Her to us.

Nonetheless, She is available to help us. We have to ask for it though, and She helps us in Her own way. Sometimes it is intuition, sometimes serendipity (that is how it seems to work for me), the happy accident that opens a new path or resolves a dilemma. I’m grateful to have Her, but I do recognize that the burden is on us to make the choices in our life, to handle our own moral and ethical dilemmas.

I think we are here to learn, and part of learning is that we have to do it ourselves.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit, my name is Andy and I am an alcoholic. I have been kept sober since Imbolc, 2001 by Your grace and Your grace alone. I’d like to take this moment to thank You, my Higher Power, for this my daily reprieve. Today is a good day to be sober. Please be with me today, all through the day and help me to stay sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that out. Thy will, not mine be done. Thank You, Blessed Be.