- When all is said and done I will have been drug tested about 100 times ($10 each).
- Holiday BAC (blow in a hand-held) testing ($5 each time) 5 to 8 times, both am and pm, on various holidays including the super bowl. Plan nothing but that on those holidays.
- (PRE-TREATMENT) I had to attend a mandatory 3 day pre-counseling class ($60) that trained you how to find and manipulate your way into substance abuse counseling. Counselors seem to be wary of people who are court ordered to go to counseling so you need to not entirely tell the truth to get in the door, and then tell them you are court ordered so they can report to your PO. This class is worse than useless and I recommend not using anything they say and just ask your PO to recommend one or pick one from the court list because anything else won't be accepted.
- (LIFE ADJUSTMENT) Go to 12 sessions of counseling (mine is $50 each).
- (AA - NA) Find and attend AA meetings two times a week and have someone there sign your AA attendance sheet for the court. ($1 donation each time) This runs the entire length of my 18 month probation and is quite frankly, hell. This is highly religious in nature and my personal take on it is that replacing something that makes you stupid with something designed to keep you stupid is just plain stupid. Aside from that, going to the same group all the time, I'm getting to know some of the people and most of them are pretty cool.
- Visit my parole officer (PO) once a month so they can copy my drug testing and AA meeting sheets and set the next date. Mine is friendly enough and so far straight-up about answering any questions I have. I always try to come up with questions each time I visit, usually stuff I already know the answer to, but just to confirm and double check so I don't get in any more trouble. After all the court fees are paid off my PO switched to every other month reporting in person. Then in the off months I filled out the report sheet, scanned that, my testing and AA sheets and email it to him. You can fax, email or snail mail around the middle of the month.
- 50 hours community service ($15 per day). You pay for this in your court fees so usually by the time you get to doing this it's already paid for. They give you a log sheet with a raised seal on it, treat it like gold because it's the only record you'll have of your service hours. Pick a place from the list of places, but pick wisely as some of them can suck. I chose a church and it usually consisted of a lot of cleaning and moving things around. I heard from others that the state parks are a workout (shoveling sh*t), High Schools are not bad and the police and fire stations are a nightmare.
- The cost total will be about $6000 when all is said and done.
So far all of the people I've met in AA that have had a DUI have had more than one DUI, not a lot of them, not even most of them, ALL of them!
Just 3 or 4 beers is all it takes to blow a .08 and that's all they need... BAC Charts
Some tips I've learned along the way:
1) Keep all of your paper work. Especially stuff you have had signed. PO's will try to take your paper work. Ask them to make copies and let you keep the originals. Reason is: if you don't have it, someone else can loose it, and you'll have to do it all over again.
2) Stay positive. It's a big bunch of bull shit but take it in stride and try to always talk about it in a positive light. Negativity will only make things worse.
3) Your PO isn't always going to guide you. I've heard many stories of people violating their probation due to being late with community service because they forgot about it or didn't get their sheet from the PO until late in the sentence. Be it sketchy stories or PO's jerking around, either way it's in your best interest to stay on top of things.
4) Stand your ground in AA, there are a lot of people who will pounce on you if you seem at all weak or insecure. They want to help but really they want to sell you the AA bible and get you into their religion. If that's your thing then fine, if not you will have to fend them off all the time. It sucks to be court ordered to put up with this kind of conflict and walking on egg shells at every meeting so you don't offend their delicate religion. For me this is by far the worst punishment of this whole ordeal.
5) If you have a Michigan Medical Mariana card get it revoked. It is beyond useless and you cannot buy a gun nor get a CPL if you have it.
Send a written request along with your card and a copy of your photo ID to
MMMW
P.O. box 30083
Lansing, MI 48909
They will send a letter back in about 2 weeks.
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