I’m sure I’m courting the vitriol of the community now, but I have to say it: alcoholism is accepted by the medical community as a disease, yet alcoholics are still met with scorn, derision, and condemnation. Also, consider that substance abuse is very often seen in tandem with mental illness, another much maligned…

I know what you mean. It feels like you’re possessed. Congratulations on your sobriety- good work.

No, I was the poster child for a drunk. I went to an in-patient facility for two months and have just been loving the part of my life I got back. That being said, there isn’t a day it doesn't scare me to my core what I could have done.

Impossible to know just how drunk she was/what else was going on, but I have to admit that my first thought upon reading this was of how this chick is going to feel when she sobers up. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s blacked out the whole incident, which will make her awakening all the more horrible indeed. Which is…

I live in a place that has both a lot of elderly and teen drivers. And an abundance of sidewalk dining. I used to think that my dad was crazy for refusing to sit at a table close to the street, preferring to eat indoors. But I witnessed someone take a corner too quickly, (sober) and plow into a group of diners.…

She was drunk. I don’t know how drunk she was, but if she was really drunk, her reaction time could have been so severely impaired that she was not able to hit the brakes until after she hit the bystanders. So long as you don’t drive drunk, you probably don’t have to worry about being involved in this kind of accident.

I got a DUI in August 2014 and I will say people who drive drunk are assholes and the punishment we get is nowhere close enough to the crime. I wrote a thank you note to the guy who called the police on me. I needed to be anywhere but on the road.

If you have the self-awareness to be afraid of that scenario, you probably aren't likely to be driving while hammered at 10am.

Then what do you want? Even if he’s just paying lip service to the cause, he’s got the right idea.

And yet, he makes it a point to state he’s not getting involved in this issue.

I don’t want to get into the habit of tone-policing our allies. He says he supports women getting more money, but that he’ll let the experts handle the work of it because he doesn’t know how to do it. I don’t care if he’s not adequately sympathetic or articulate. He’s on the correct side of the fence.

I dunno that I would be so harsh on this guy. It sounds like he’s trying to say, “If I talk on this at all, I’m just going to taste my own feet and make things worse.” And rather then be a problem on something he truly doesn’t understand, he’s instead focusing on keeping out of the way of those who do understand.

I was raped 20 years ago. I still have nightmares. What amends can my rapist make that will make that go away? He can’t. He can’t give me back what I lost.

“Pressuring”? This is called rape. Not sex. Rape. Please don’t call rape sex. That’s like calling a mugging a gift of your wallet and cell phone.

19 is plenty old enough to understand the concept of “don’t sexually assault someone.”

He didn’t take his dad’s car for a joy ride, or get caught smoking a “left handed cigarette” (as my dad would call it). HE FRIGGIN’ RAPED SOMEONE. And he can petition for it to be removed in 15 years.

GOOD.

I have my reservations about the sex offender registry in general, but this is a great use of it. It means that during the next Senior Salute, some guy might decide pressuring a 14-year-old into sex isn’t worth spending the rest of your life on a list of rapists and pedophiles.

May he and everyone like him rot in the hell they so richly deserve.

Far less than this scumbag deserved.