Position Shift

Under the Influence

I never thought that being under the influence and driving was such a big deal. Of course many people have gotten into accidents because of it but I always thought that, that was because they weren't careful enough. I thought that all you had to do was focus on what your doing and make sure that you don't drive all over the place. When I started going to parties in high school and older kids had their licenses I would jump in their car and catch a ride home once the party was over. Not caring whether they were drinking or not as long as they weren't trashed. I had a lot of older friends that drove and I would always get a ride home with them not thinking any thing of it. I didn't care that the kid who was driving me home was just playing at a beer pong table for hours. As I became older my friends and I started getting our permits and licenses and could eventually drive on our own to these parties. I never drove drunk but I knew many friends that did. It didn't affect me until this one night that I will never forget.

One of my friends threw a party on a high school Saturday so everyone was there. It was a huge party because his parents left for the weekend and everyone was invited. We had the music blasting all night long and we had all the drinking games you could think of going on in different sections of the house. We had beer pong going on outside, flip cup in the living room, ring of fire downstairs. It was a huge house too so there were over one hundred people at this party which is a lot for a house party in my town.

That night I caught a ride with a friend of mine, Scott. Everyone was having a fun time; drinking, listening to music and chatting. Eventually, it was time for the party to end and at about two in the morning people started leaving. I found my friend that I had gone to the party with and he said to me "we are all going to go to Montauk to see the sunrise, are you down?" by "all" he meant him and four other kids; just enough to pack into his Nissan truck. I said "sure, I'm down for that!" We thought nothing of it and left the party to go to Montauk, which was about an hour drive. We all packed into the truck and thought of different ways we could get the time to go by faster. Out of all the ideas we thought about what worked best was to tell stupid stories of the past or stories about what happened at the party we were just at.

On the way to Montauk, there was a kid in the truck that didn't drink that night so we had him driving the truck. The only problem with that was that he was underage and didn't have a license yet. About halfway through our journey we had gotten pulled over for speeding. My friend, George, who was driving got a ticket for driving underage. We were all really nervous because we thought that everyone that was drunk in the car was going to get busted. When you do something that you know is wrong and you get really anxious and nervous when you think you about to get caught is what we were all thinking when the cop came to the driver's side window. Luckily the cop didn't realize that the rest of us in the truck weren't sober enough to drive, so he just left. The night was already off to a bad start. So now my friend Scott who I was drinking with at the party decides to get behind the wheel since it is his truck. So we continue on our journey so see the sunrise.

After what seemed to be an eternity, we finally made it to the beach and we got to see the sunrise. We sat shocked and awed on the life guard stand that we had actually made it all the way to Montauk and didn't turn around halfway through. It had to have been one of the stupidest things that we have ever done. Although it seemed so much fun at the time since we didn't want to end the night on a boring note. By now, it's about six in the morning and the alcohol is starting to wear off. We are all getting pretty tired and decide that its time for us to head home. Scott was too tired to drive so Alex decides to drive home. We got onto the Long Island Expressway and started our trip back home. Everyone was tired from drinking and then staying up all night long. The kids who weren't driving tried to stay up as long as possible to keep Alex company, but eventually we all just passed out.

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