“The ravages of alcohol run through the hearings of the Bourges criminal court. Violence and domestic violence, refusal to comply, hit-and-runs, insults, attacks, etc. are bathed in abuse. How many are there to believe, at the bar, that under the influence of alcohol, the facts are less reprehensible? On the contrary: it is an aggravating circumstance and far from being an excuse?
To those who think they can tame their demons, to those who believe they are “immortal” as one lawyer said, “invincible”, “omnipotent” said another, to those who believe they can “get out of it alone” , to those who do not make it an illness, and finally to those who take refuge behind their mantra: “it’s festive”. But what is there to celebrate in drinking without reason that reason does not understand? To then take the wheel with, in front and behind, the lives of others besides your own? What is there to celebrate in drinking without measure, in driving without conscience, in destroying lives without scruples?
“From the moment you get behind the wheel, you are potentially a killer,” insisted a lawyer. It seems that each fatal accident, each tragedy with irreversible consequences, each hearing riddled with the consequences of alcohol abuse is not a shield against future tragedies.
You have to come and sit in a courtroom, listen to the explanations of the defendants, and above all, the pleas of the victims whose broken lives can never be put back together. We must hear the swallowed tears of loved ones, penetrate, if only for a second, into their drama so lasting that it now constitutes their existence. We have to confront the reality of the stories, the fears, the nightmares that persist. We must plunge our hands into the thick sorrows that remain suspended in the silences.
The end of year holidays are approaching
How can everyone not understand the need not to drink and then drive, not to commit one's own destiny to the path of death and, worse, to commit the destiny of those we love and who, perhaps, will continue to love you beyond reasonable life? In this, the Bourges criminal court shows this stark reality.
And as the end-of-year holidays approach, so that future audiences are not tinged with the drama of the days to come, it is imperative to consider that someone who has been drinking should not get behind the wheel. For him. For his loved ones. And for all those who asked for nothing, but found themselves caught in the net of a tragedy that should have remained foreign to them, if only if…
But to hell with the ifs. Now we need certainty.”
