I was listening to the radio yesterday morning. They were discussing reactions to finding out your significant other posed nude for a magazine. Some people said it would not bother them but the secret kept from them would bother them. Then they started asking if they all had dark secrets th at no one else knows or they don’t share with husbands and wives.

It made me think of my dark DUI secrets. I do tell some friends and usually it is shaken off because they know others that got arrested for drunk driving or they got caught themselves.

But how many of those people crashed a year old car into a ditch? How many spent a week in jail instead of one night in the “drunk tank”? Yet after two months of sobriety after my release, I went back to partying and drinking.

Will I confess my DUI to future relationships? Will I reveal the details to them? It seems anytime I fill out an application for anything (job, apartment,  travel visas), I must answer whether I have ever been convicted of a crime. Everyone tells me that it should not have to be disclosed unless it happened within so many years (five, seven, ten?) But when I fill out forms, they always ask EVER convicted. It will follow me forever.

It wasn’t just a mistake. It was not some normal slip of the mind. I put my life and other lives at risk. And I did not learn a lesson because an alcoholic puts her addiction before anything else. I avoided driving drunk again for a few years by living in areas with great public transportation systems. But four years later after my last DUI, I had a few incidences where I have no idea how I drove home.  Hit a wall in a parking lot once and don’t remember it.  Had friends tell me horror stories of being the passenger in my car but letting me drive because they couldn’t drive manual shift. I am sure a third DUI will happen if I drink again.

Now I am worried about a visa application for a country. I had to list that I was arrested twice.  I am going to the consulate tomorrow.  I have my arrest ticket, court papers, and letters that I completed mandated alcohol programs. I hope the DUIs do not make them decline my application.

I need to blog about the whole DUI and jail experience.  Not sure how much I will tell a future spouse but I will spill the beans with cyberland.