To be an accredited investor, according to the SEC,  must be either a corporation or:

1. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person
2. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year

In other words, accredited investors are the 1%. If you’re not already in the 1%, this rule makes it harder to get there. For people who took risks early in life, built companies from the ground up, and became millionaires from their own hard work, this is all fine and dandy – they clearly deserve the privileges availed to accredited investors. However, many with this status have $1M+ bank accounts thanks to mom, dad, grandpa and grandma. And as long as accredited investor status exists, the wealth chasm between the rich and the poor will continue to grow.

I recently worked for a startup that was sold to a large company that has since went public. While I did not own a large number of stock options (2000), I was not eligible to transfer my shares to shares of the acquiring company because I was not an accredited investor. Instead, I had to sell my shares for $3 a share, netting a profit of $5k. This was a nice bonus, for sure, but had I been able to convert my handful of shares into the now-public companies shares, I would have netted approximately $52k.

The idea being accredited investors is that you should have a large cushion of money to take on high risk investment opportunities. In this case, it was very clear that the risk in converting my 2000 shares to 2000 shares of the acquiring company’s stock would have not been high risk, but it kept me from making this conversion.

In the case of my prior company, I am not upset about this since the company was ultimately acquired for its technical resources, and I was not one of these resources, but it is still a little disconcerting that in a company of 10 full time employees, where more than half are millionaires, the rest of employees do not have access to the same wealth. This is more concerning in my current situation where I traded in a somewhat cushy six figure salary for a job with many more stock options. Should a similar situation happen again upon an acquisition, there would be greater cause for upset.

Beyond this specific instance, there are many other reasons why accredited investor status helps the wealthy get richer. Accredited investors gain access to a variety of investments that, while risky, are often not that much riskier than the investments that one can make in the traditional stock market, and, more importantly, they have a much higher growth potential.

As with any investment, diversification is key to success, so if you’re not a millionaire it might be difficult to properly diversify. This is the only reason I understand the rule and find it remotely fair, but again, there are many high-risk investments that aren’t limited to the wealthy… it’s just the high-risk investments that have high-return potential that are limited.

• If you fit into this category you may be eligible for many investment opportunities such as hedge funds, commodity funds and special public funds that other investors are not allowed to participate in.
• The key is that many higher risk, and thus higher reward, investments are only available to qualified “accredited investors.”
• The main benefit to qualifying is that you gain access to investments, and greater returns, that “average” investors can not access.
• Quite simply, it comes down to convenience and privacy for the investment managers. By marketing securities only to accredited investors, a fund or company can avoid many of the filing requirements to which most public companies are subjected.

According to SecondMarket, “For regulatory reasons, in order to view listings and place indicative bids on securities through SecondMarket, you must be an Accredited Investor or Qualified Institutional Buyer (“QIB”). However, you do not have to be an Accredited Investor or QIB to list your assets for sale.”

In short, this is one major reason why the rich get richer, and the rest of us are unable to access the same investment opportunities available to the 1%.

I’m not alone in this outrage. There is a movement afoot to allow the 99% to invest in startups. A law is currently in Congress that would allow the rest of us to invest up to $1,000 in private companies. While I believe that the government should not be able to limit investments to $1,000, it is a start. Please do your part and sign this petition to support crowd funding. It is a small step in the right direction.

“One physician explained the problem in Popular Science Monthly in 1905: An educated woman developed a “self-assertive, independent character” that made it “impossible to love, honor and obey” as a real wife should. He warned that as more middle-class women attended college, middle-class men would look to the lower classes to find uneducated wives.”

The article, which focuses on PhD-earners, goes on to highlight how our last century has, for a large part, been filled with a society that tells women to be or act stupid in order to catch a man. Women were taught to marry up, and men were ok with marrying down, so long as their female counterpart would showcase talent in two fields: cooking and cleaning.

My, how the world has changed…

“ONE of the dire predictions about educated women is true: today, more of them are “marrying down.” Almost 30 percent of wives today have more education than their husbands, while less than 20 percent of husbands have more education than their wives, almost the exact reverse of the percentages in 1970.”

However, the article goes on to highlight research done for an upcoming book on female breadwinners, where women said they wanted to be able to look up to their guy, and he would need to have an equal level of education in order for the equation, and the relationship to work.

Looking at my personal relationships, I find I’m like these women who want a man I can look up to an admire, though that’s more in terms of intellect than wealth. I don’t have a PhD or a MA, so perhaps with just a BA I’m still concerned to be less intelligent than the women this article focuses on. Regardless, I’ve found that I like to date “up” in terms of intelligence, and one of the reasons I love my SO that still gives me butterflies is when he talks to me about his excitement over physics or the inequalities of the world.

But there are still gender dynamics at play in our relationship. Even though I make more than him salary-wise (my $90k to his $20k), I’m still not “allowed” to propose to him. I have to wait for him to propose, even though we’ve been together 6.5 years. He is much less aggressive than I am in terms of asking for raises, and will remain this way throughout his life. While he is not motivated to pursue a professional life, in a way, I enjoy that he is intelligent but not obsessed with his career. This allows me to focus on my career, which is stressful and demanding, and then to come home to someone who isn’t stressed out in the same way. I’ve told him if he can cook and clean for me, I’d be ok in the long run for him to be the “stay at home mom.” I certainly understand why it’s nice to have one person in the relationship play this role, albeit not best from a financial perspective.

What do you think? Does intellect play a role in your deciding who to date and settle down with?

Incredibly enough, I’ve added nearly $150k to my investment accounts across my IRAs, 401ks, and taxable accounts. While I’m still not sure if taking the “select companies” vs index fund route makes a lot of sense, I know I end up putting more money into investments when I feel like I have some control over the fate of my networth, and at the very least, an opportunity to learn more about business and how public markets work.

Of all the finance sites I use, my favorite is Wikinvest (soon to be SigFig, which I received an Alpha invite to this week.) Wikinvest is awesome because, as seen above, it offers a really easy way to track your stocks (and ETFs), including information on P/E, Rev Growth, P/S, etc. These are probably fairly basic things to look at when deciding to purchase a stock. Above, you will see the six stocks I own with the lowest P/Es (and how many shares I own of each).

It’s fun to look at how AAPL, while $493.42 a share, still has a relatively low P/E and its revenue growth was 67.6%! Now, I wish there was more data here regarding what that revenue growth represents (Qtr over Qtr? YoY?) but regardless, this data shows that AAPL stock, despite being pricey per share, may be worth a lot more than some other stocks. I’m still concerned AAPL will lose value (can it sustain such growth) but seeing that it made $3.60 per share vs say, GE’s $1.35 per share makes me feel confident in a long-term AAPL investment. As you can see, I’ve made $15k on AAPL (on paper) with just 79.94 shares.

Let’s sort by my stocks owned by P/E in the other direction. AMZN has the highest P/E — 135! Compared to AAPL, it’s Revenue Growth was only 40.6%. Even Google, which has a P/E of 20.50 (not too bad, but still higher than AAPL) only increased 29.3%. But it also has a P/S of $5.20, which is better than AAPL. This is where my knowledge lacks and I don’t fully understand the factors which make that possible, or our P/S is determined. More research on my end is required.

In a related note, I am annoyed that I have .44 shares of FTR. That happened when VZ split  with them. .44 shares is pointless, to sell them will cost $8 (more than they are worth) and they just clutter up my account. Looking at FTR, however, they seem to have a 79.7% revenue growth, I wonder if I should just purchase $100 worth of FTR shares and see if they can run up enough where I can sell the stock so it doesn’t clutter my portfolio and I don’t lose $8 on it.

In case you’re wondering, in my taxable account, here are the stocks and ETFs which have been performing best so far:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my mental health (not to mention my physical health) and how important it is to focus on improving it.  There just isn’t enough time to seek help, as much as I need it. The question I have lingering on my mind is whether traditional help could ever really help. All the psychological drugs in the world can’t help me get me to where I should be going if I’m on the wrong path. But what is the wrong path?

The truth is that I have such deep-rooted ethical values and beliefs that it is difficult for me to be a marketer. On one hand, I think I’m really good at marketing. Marketers need to be a little crazy in order to do good work. They must be a little narcissistic (everyone should be thinking about their company in a positive light and if they’re not then they need to make that happen), they must be a bit borderline (fear of customer abandonment), and perhaps even a bit sociopathic (natural charmers, but even if you believe in the product and company at times your charm is going to be fake.) You are hyper sensitive and aware of reactions. You have anxiety about anything that might cause a poor representation for your brand, and also about your competitors. You must have black-or-white thinking, your competitors are bad, you are good. Yes, no wonder I am a good marketer.

I do believe in my company, 100%. I just think deep down I like to help people vs sell to them. That’s it. I’m not a selfless person either, but I’m happiest when I feel like I am actually helping someone. It’s not like I’m the type of person that wants to change the world and save the whales. I’m not ready to join the Peace Corps and leave my dream of wealth behind. I’m just not so sure I’m cut out to be a marketer. Fortunately I know that my company by far has the best product on the market, so I can easily say that and mean it. Still, my passion is and will always be creating quality and innovative user experiences. I’m so far removed from the product as a marketer that I just become this megaphone of everyone else’s creativity and ideas. Perhaps a pretty good megaphone (I’ve realized lately that it is actually pretty hard to do what I do, especially writing-wise, and I’m good at it) but I don’t want to look back on my life, one which was supposed to be filled with art and creativity and creation, and say I was one damn good megaphone.

Two weeks ago I took two Adderall to help me stay awake (I know, not the best idea when I hadn’t taken them in a while) and suddenly everything was so clear. It felt real, all the direction in life, to just do the best job possible now, really contribute significantly to making my company worth as much as possible (which I can do in my role, one great part about it, I can at least help a team that know what they’re doing) and in three to four more years, apply to art school, and — even if I’m not that good — spend 2-4 years just painting and drawing and getting better at it. It wasn’t even something I was considering at the time, I was just sure of it, that it was the perfect plan, and in that time I had decided I needed to push back having kids until I was 35 so I could dedicate a part of my life, before I got too old, to becoming a better artist.

Then the meds wore off an reality set in. It didn’t really make sense at all. I mean, maybe, if I can save enough money and I really think I could make a career as some sort of artist or art educator, but I’m not really that good at it. And I have such a good career right now. I mean, somehow or other I managed to line myself up for a really solid professional life as long as I can keep improving, fix my issues with time management and leadership, and really be a rockstar marketer. I mean, nothing is easy, but compared to just seven years ago when I was at my rock bottom, completely depressed post graduation, and hoping for a full time job doing just about anything, I’ve somehow landed on my feet. It really wasn’t that long ago when I was sending out thousands of resumes per month, applying for just any job, hoping someone would bite, and finding it extremely difficult for anyone in Silicon Valley to give someone without an Ivy League degree and heaps of internship experience a chance.

God knows I don’t want to mess up now. It’s very possible that I’m just so mentally unstable (ie bipolar and/or borderline) that I’ll never truly be content in my life as much as I want to be. There is a part of me that loves exactly where I am right now, and wouldn’t change it for the world. I was just telling my boyfriend that of all the jobs I’ve had thus far, this is definitely my favorite. I finally have some autonomy and responsibility. Still, what does this actually lead to professionally 10 years down the line? Do I want to be VP of Marketing when I’m 38? Or would I rather be a product manager, or psychologist, or artist, or…?

The fact that these jobs require 24/7 commitments and contributions is fine in my 20s, but could I really do this in my 30s as I hopefully start a family? And am I even cut out for any leadership roles? I’ve already written on here that I’m terrible at leading and managing. I could get better, but some people just aren’t natural leaders. Those people who excel in business, especially in the softer side, are people people. And I am not good with people. I’m good at understanding people, I’m good at observing people, I’m good at listening to people, but I’m not so good at all the other social skills that are so valuable in life, especially in business. The only way one can get away with that and still be a leader is if they are a brilliant engineer, which I am not.

Anyway, I probably shouldn’t be writing this all publicly because one of these days someone who knows me is going to figure out who I am and take all of this the wrong way.  I hope I’ve made it clear that I really, really like my job and even more so I like my company and the people I work with, there is just a fundamental concern I have regarding if I’m in a career where I’ll never actually be good enough to get ahead due to my poor social and leadership skills.

That said, maybe I do this for 3-5 more years, and focus on really doing the best I possibly can, just deal with all of the painful criticism when I am not perfect, hang in, hold tight, sit back, and try to get better at the things I’m not that good at, or focus on improving what I’m already good at, and when that time is up, I can make a decision about where I go next. Maybe that is really dropping everything and going to art school. Maybe that’s an MBA. Maybe that’s going to school for user experience. Maybe that’s going back into journalism (which I miss and think I’d be much better at now than I was when I didn’t understand the business world at all.) Maybe that’s just leaving work and becoming a full-time mom. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I need to wake up every morning and commit to where I am at now. It’s a great place to be. And I really do have the ability, everyday, to make a difference. Ultimately that’s all I really need to be happy, as long as I’m succeeding more often than failing.

Lately, I’ve been working over 12 hours per day, and still the amount accomplished is so much less than I need to get done. Given there is no real set beginning or end to the day, it’s admittedly easy to get caught up in a less important task or other distraction, as I know I’ll be working well into the evening and night regardless of how productive I am during the day. The more productive I am, the more I get done, the more I need to get done. It’s the nature of my job that there’s no “finishing” and there’s never “enough.”

A part of me loves that kind of stress, and thrives on it. Some of my best work is created when I’m exhausted, when I’m so tired I can’t even find the energy to worry, and I sit down and just write. But lately I’m even more exhausted than that. I don’t think I’ve been this constantly stressed out before, feeling like I am having one ongoing panic attack.

I’m trying hard to prioritize and focus on one project at a time so I can feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, and thus tone down the stress level a bit, but there’s too much going on that is a priority to stop and focus on any one thing. I’ve been reading a bit lately how multi-tasking, despite what resume-writers might want you to believe, is actually a detriment to productivity.

I prefer to work hard for success and praise, but there must be something I can do to make all of this stress more manageable. Do you have any tips?

What makes me nervous is that with this plan I only have $525k in networth by 38, and that’s if everything goes as planned where I can continue saving $50k per year until I have my first kid. This all freaks me out quite a bit, I wish there was a way to get to $500k before I get married and have kids!

Age 28. — 2012
$200k networth. Earn $100k+ for the year, save $50k.

Age 29. — 2013
$250k networth. Earn $110k+ for the year. Get married, move into 1br w/ bf.

Age 30. — 2014
$300k networth. Earn $120k+ for the year. Start trying to have my first kid.

Age 31. — 2015
$350k networth. Earn $130k+ for the year. Have my first kid.

Age 32. — 2016
$375k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Take time off to be with kid?

Age 33. — 2017
$400k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Consult.

Age 34. — 2018
$425k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Second kid.

Age 35. — 2019
$450k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Consult.

Age 36. — 2020
$475k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Third kid.

Age 37. — 2021
$500k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Buy a house?

Age 38. — 2022
$525k networth. Earn $50k for the year. Consult.

Up until today, I’ve only sold small cap losses that seem to be destined for failure or, at best, growth after years of retreating even further, while that money could be in a large-cap dividend stock earning income. Today, however, I decided to sell one ETF where I have turned a profit.

So long GLD, at least from my taxable account. After making an early $500 investment in GLD I found out that gold, even in an ETF, is taxed at a collectors rate. That means 28% capital gains tax. Instead of letting my $500 sit in my taxable account (it is at about $900 now) I’ve decided to sell the 5 shares and move my investments into other funds that belong in my taxable accounts. And after today’s AAPL earnings news, I’m tempted to put the $900 into purchasing two more shares of the company that made the computer I’m currently writing on and the phone I’ll be making calls on in a few minutes. I only own 70-some odd shares of AAPL stock, my goal is to get to 100 shares before the company hits $500 a share. Since AAPL doesn’t pay dividends, this is the perfect company to hold in my taxable accounts.

Meanwhile, I invest regularly in GLD in my Roth IRA account. It seems GLD is fairly expensive right now (afterall, I nearly doubled my initial investment from just a few years ago) so I might hold on aggressively investing in it. My Roth account is my “play” account, since I can only put $5k in it per year. I put that mostly into high-dividend ETFs and rebalance by adding more funds in new sectors the following year. For instance, this year I’ve already invested about $2k into XLE (oil) and XRT (retail companies) as well as GLD. I only have $3k left for my Roth this year, but I plan to start contributing to my 401k (no match) soon, and trying to max that out this year. I’m hoping for a significant raise, which in the ideal world will be enough to cover maxing out my 401k without noticing those contributions too much, but I’m not sure yet if that’s actually going to happen. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I have $900 liquid that I can invest somewhere. Oh goody. I think it’s pretty crazy that I currently have $149339.25 in my investment accounts right now, not counting about $10k liquid (though taxes are going to eat some of that up I think.) Even though $150k doesn’t seem like a lot of money, I’m proud that in the last 6 years since I’ve graduated college I’ve been able to go from $5k in savings to over $160k. Still pushing for that $200k this year — if the economy decides to recover and I manage a sizable raise it will help lift me up there, otherwise I’ll probably end up at $180k for the year. Really would like to see that happen, I’m so set on entering my 30s with $250k in the bank, I’ll be pretty peeved at myself if I don’t make that goal.

But I’m also wondering, what’s next?

I’m ready to take the next step and move in with my boyfriend, and he’s ready to move in with me, minus the logistics. My rent situation right now is financially smart, and he’s not even paying rent (which works since he’s working PT and quitting soon.)

Looking at our options:

Stay in our current situation until we get married: Rent will stay $650 / month for a while, my landlord rarely increases rent and I just had a $15 / mo increase. Probably the smartest move. We’ll move in together in 2013/2014 after we get married.

Rent a 1br Apartment: This will likely cost $1600 – $2000 / month. Even split between the two of us, that’s $800 / mo at the very cheapest, more likely $1000 / mo for each of us.

Buy a 1br Condo: $600k? It’s hard to figure out the exact costs of owning a 1br condo, but it seems like this will end up being quite a bit more than renting given HOA, taxes, and other fees.

Buy a house w/ an in-law: My bf’s parents currently do not own property. His mom lives in her parents house, and his father rents an in-law. His mother could feasibly help us out with a downpayment, and his parents could live in an in-law on our property and pay us rent.

Still, the best plan seems to be to stay in my current living situation. Paying $650 a month in rent means I can possibly save $50k per year. The second my living situation changes, my hope of saving $250k by 30 disappears. The house I want to buy when I have a family will likely be $1.5M, and my bf currently has $0 in savings, so it’s up to me to be able to afford that. If I can get to $500k in savings by 35, maybe I can buy a $1.5M house. I’m not sure if that’s enough, and I’m also not sure I can get to $250M in savings by 35 — I think if I spend the next seven years living with roommates, not with my boyfriend, I could do this. But that’s a long time, and I really want to start living my adult life with my boyfriend in our own place, so we can invite friends over for dinner and such, and so I can stay with him and not have to worry about not having my things and having to run home before going to work in the morning.

Meanwhile, if I save $500k by 35, I’ll be able to buy my (nice) childhood home outright in New Jersey! It’s crazy how cheap the housing is there.

There are many days when I think I am just being over emotional, or can get by with my variety of personality disorders and fake it enough to seem normal to the outside world. Then the walls come crashing down and a tsunami of reality floods in. Life is great and yet I still feel empty, depressed, lost. This is why I’m 99% sure I have some sort of co-morbid cocktail of Borderline Personality Disorder and others. Borderline personality disorder happens to also be hardest to treat because deep down people with BPD don’t really want to be helped.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person (generally over the age of eighteen years, although it is also found in adolescents), characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black-and-white thinking, or splitting; the disorder often manifests itself in idealization and devaluation episodes, as well as chaotic and unstable interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior; as well as a disturbance in the individual’s sense of self. In extreme cases, this disturbance in the sense of self can lead to periods of dissociation.

Yes, that describes me well, minus the dissociation bit. It’s quite confusing to sort out which criteria fall under the NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) bucket vs BPD, and it doesn’t help that they are considered to often occur co-morbidly despite being so similar.

“Borderline and narcissistic patients both idealize and devalue others. However, there are important differences in the ways in which they do so. The borderline patient alternates between idealization and devaluation like a young child who changes best friends and whose frustration tolerance and capacity to delay gratification have not matured. Nevertheless, the borderline patient cares about the other person, even though the alternating attitudes may lead to a slow deterioration of the relationship. The narcissistic patient is more exploitative; the idealization is related to an idealized projection of an omnipotent self. It” the other person tails to manifest this delegated omnipotence for the patient’s benefit, the other is cast aside as no longer of use to the narcissistic patient, who then shifts to a new person who is expected to enhance the patient’s grandiose fantasy. The narcissistic patient’s rage is more of a contemptuous nature when manipulation of and extraction from the other are no longer possible. The borderline patient’s trigger is usually a threat to the patient’s dependency needs rather than a threat to the patient’s grandiosity. The narcissistic patient’s idealization is related to power, influence, glamour, and status that will further self-aggrandizement and carries little evidence of human caring. The narcissistic patient “borrows” a friend’s car with a feeling of entitlement and without permission, whereas the borderline patient does so from a boundary problem—that is, not distinguishing between “mine” and “not mine.”

In that sense, I definitely relate more to BPD than narcissism. I sincerely don’t think I’m the most important person in the world or deserve more than other people, or that everything should be all about me. There are definitely times when I feel threatened over being seen as not special, but this is always in relation to being able to maintain my relationships with other people. I do not understand how to be in a healthy relationship with another person (romantic, friendly, or professional) without convincing them that I am special and worth keeping around.  This is why although I fit many of the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, I’m pretty sure the truth is I am borderline. My parents are narcissistic in a much more typical manner. It hurts me to see this behavior. I do not want to hurt people. I just don’t know how to relate to them. And I crave deep, meaningful relationships but feel like there is no way to have these relationships, especially with “normal” people. From the outside I probably appear fairly normal, or, for those who know me better, appear narcissistic, but it’s never really about thinking I need to be the best (though my parents trained me to crave this) — it’s more about a need to fake it in order to not be thrown out of other people’s lives.

Most people with borderline personality disorder had severe trauma in their lives, and many were sexually abused. I am very grateful that I was not sexually abused as a child. But I have a feeling that my father beating me, and even more, his emotional abuse compiled with my mother’s inability to empathize really fucked me up in the head. You might say everyone has issues, everyone is messed up in the head in some way, and that’s probably true, but the severity of these issues – when they get in the way of leading a normal productive life, are when you should theoretically seek help.

The woman I reached out to for Borderline Personality Disorder therapy is $225 an hour. Should I spend $1,000 a month treating a disorder that isn’t treatable? Do I just push on and cope as I go? I’m so scared of being the person I am today and — within the next few years — becoming a wife and mother. Maybe having a child to care about and love will help, but I realize that being a mother is extremely challenging and I’m in no mental state to approach this phase of my life yet. I need help to get there. I don’t know how much money is required to fix me, or if I can be fixed. I wish I knew that answer, I hate wasting money on therapy that goes no where, especially when only I can change who I am, what I want, and resolve to a much simpler appetite for contentment in exchange for some irrational form of manic happiness.

]]> http://hereverycentcounts.com/2012/01/when-to-get-help-for-mental-health-borderline-personality-disorder.html/feed 4 http://hereverycentcounts.com/2012/01/weekends-in-an-orange-vest.html http://hereverycentcounts.com/2012/01/weekends-in-an-orange-vest.html#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:32:49 +0000 Joy http://hereverycentcounts.com/?p=1657 Continue reading →]]> While the fines suck, the 3-month DUI class is a pain, and inability to travel to Canada for 10 years is a bummer, the worst part about getting a DUI is the Weekend Work Program. As part of my punishment, I have do 5 days of weekend “work” or go to jail for the same amount of time without getting to go home at night. Of course, I, and everyone else arrested for a DUI, chose weekend work.

So far…

Day 1 — sat in a cold garage all day.
Day 2 — went to a field of rocks and “picked up rocks” all day.
Day 3 — went to a park and raked leaves into piles and then raked the same leaves out of piles.
Day 4 — washed windows that weren’t dirty all day.
Day 5 — ? next Saturday is my last day, finally.

It’s fascinating hearing the stories of people who were arrested for a DUI. There are hundreds of people who gather in a prison parking garage every Saturday and Sunday to serve out their time. Some blew a .08% after driving home from a wedding and not stopping fully at a stop sign, while others blew a .26% and woke up in handcuffs after a bad accident. I’ve met people who pled guilty with a .1 BAC and got a harsher sentence than those who fought it and got a plea bargin with a .15. I’ve met people who led police on a chase driving through a few red lights before passing out and getting caught. Many are in for their first DUIs, others for their second, who tell scary stories of spending time in jail. The main topic of conversation that gets us through the day is alcohol and drugs — most people go home after they get out at 4pm and drink. On Sunday, many talk about how hungover they are. A few brag about their drug use that morning. And, to my surprise, many on the program even sneak in joints and smoke when the supervisors aren’t looking.

They say once you have  your first DUI, you’re likely to get a second. That’s only true is that once you get a DUI you are on court probation for 3 years and if you have ANY alcohol in your system when you are driving and get caught (even .01%) you will get a second DUI. Meanwhile, a lot of the people who receive second DUIs just like to party and don’t seem to care, or they think they are invincible. I’ve heard many stories now of how the first DUI and second DUIs happen, and while I don’t judge, some of the people there make me sad because I know they are probably going to get another. They aren’t bad people (well, most aren’t) but their lives just revolve around partying, drinking and drugs. I’m still the only person that I met in there who got arrested because someone called 911 on my walking to my car; but that’s what I get for thinking I was ok to drive. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll never go near a car after drinking.

I wish the program was actually designed to help people. The DUI class is a joke. I’ve been to one so far (I have a 3 month program.) The class was 2 hours, with the first hour spent with the instructor talking about how to get help if you’re an addict, and then we watched an hour of a video from the early 2000s (though it seemed like it was from the 80s) about a father who was addicted to ecstasy. Apparently one week of the program the cops come in and show you mangled bodies that were in DUI-related accidents to scare you straight. I’m sure there is a better way to help people learn how to be healthy and safe with their drinking habits. It’s just a waste of time. Regardless, that waste of time, and money, has taught me a lesson that I wish I never had to be taught. Too many others are going to get another DUI, and the programs in place aren’t at all effective in stopping them.