Not drinking isn't enough
Kim Reynolds claims the justice system is being weaponized against Trump - so reporters have to ask about the time she used position, privilege to get out out of what could have been a deadly crime
She keeps claiming the justice system is being weaponized against Trump so let’s talk about Kim Reynolds and about how she weaponized the Iowa criminal justice system to get her out of crime that too often is deadly, and would have kept her from holding office or voting.
A bottom to a drunk or addict isn’t a place - it doesn’t have to land you on the street or in jail. For me it was a moral and spiritual bankruptcy - a center didn’t hold - so painful I had to make a decision. A decision to not drink (something I literally couldn’t see was possible) but the hardest part? Two choices: live in fear or in faith. And my definition of faith is honesty no matter how painful. For me fear can’t live along side honesty in my head - they are incongruous one or the other are the only choices. It’s hard as hell sometimes but I was given grace to hit my bottom with a resounding deafining thud.
In 2017 when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds took office, she told Jason Nobel (then working with the Des Moines Register) that she wanted to be a role model for recovering alcoholics. She was at the time 16 years booze free. From reading the article, I actually dug her scene. No, I never admired her politics but man, I gotta give it to anyone who Does This Thing.
I was 16 - I got arrested for OWI - going 70 down Lincoln Way in Ames, Iowa. I was given one option: in patient treatment and rigorous aftercare. It was the most terrifying time of my life.
I was shuttled off to a rehab in Minnesota. A locked facility that smelled of teenaged smokers, Mt. Dew and brokenness. Intake was humiliating some old woman told me; undress, crouch, cough bend over (I actually had no idea wtf this was all for at the time) then I was given a ratty gray towel and told to shower.
That was the first time I went to rehab but wasn’t the last. That experience was such a mind fuck - so traumatic - that it has taken decades for me to come to terms with. And I am lucky.
Finally after years of being dry - not drinking but white knuckling it or switching addictions (for me I developed a helluva eating disorder I’m still trying to figure out) I drank again. And went to rehab again. Then drank again. Considered very, very seriously drinking myself to death but then was dragged (literally) out of my apartment and dumped at the Last Stop.
I was only 29 years old. But it stuck.
Over 20 years later I have a completely different life.
Fortunately I never got a second OWI - though that was just pure chance.
A high school friend - one that could match me drink for drink back in the day - was driving drunk and got into a wreck that killed her passenger - her boyfriend of the time.
She was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison. We lost touch. But I know (because our families are from the same place in Iowa) her life has been a series of catastrophes of her own making: that is what drunks do.
We blow up our own lives and those of every one around us. We can’t help it. We are liars. Selfish. Self-centered and possess a conviction that we are right all of the time.
We have to because otherwise we would realize how terrified we are of everyone and everything around us. Sayings in programs of recovery are tedious but I’ll be damned if some aren’t true. One makes me think of the person I used to be: Your toolbox had one tool in it and it was a hammer.
Cheesy? Sure - but true. In order to aquire new tools I had to do a ton of work (which is ongoing and some days I do better than others).
The work? Rigorous honesty. My god that terrified me. Honesty about who I was, the deep harms I caused, facing those I love and admitting my wrongs and working year after year to live a life that didn’t just “tell” but “showed” This Is The Real Me.
In 2017 when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds took office she said that she wanted to be a role model for recovering alcoholics. She was at the time 16 years booze free. From reading the article, I actually dug her scene. No, I never admired her politics but man, I gotta give it to anyone who Does This Thing.
She was carrying the message: you can live without booze.
But in 2022 I don’t see a potential role model for recovery. I see a person with one tool and yes it is a hammer and yes it impacts the least among us.
I suppose this is where her origin story comes in.
In the 2017 article she talked openly about her back to back OWI’s - her second one according to court records included a charge for open container. This is significant because it is a mitigating factor when thinking about charging. There is the danger of a drunk person behind the wheel but a drunk person behind the wheel with an open container of booze is an even bigger threat.
To be clear I didn’t have an open container when I was arrested back in 1988 but I am sure it is only because I ran out of booze. Hell, I was probably in the car on my way to get more booze with my fake ID.
Anyway. There is something so familiar to me in Reynolds 2nd OWI. Thinking surely this is fine, I can drive, this will all be okay, I will just be safer this time, and yes, I will take this open container but I’m not going to drink it I will just sit it in the console, okay maybe just a little sip…
The lies I told myself.
And this is where I get angry.
Reynolds used her position of power to get out of that 2nd OWI - called in a favor.
From reading the available online reports about Reynolds second arrest it is clear she was driving in a way that could have resulted in an accident that could have killed someone - or herself or both. That open container added another layer - that was intent. Just because I’m on a bender doesn’t remove culpability.
Unless of course you have friends in high places.
Reynolds should have gone to jail. She should have been barred from voting - let alone from holding public office. Imagine if she were a Black woman? Or frankly, any other person than a well connected politician (she was serving in county government at the time, called in a favor from the then country prosecutor).
There is another saying that comes to mind: never deprive someone of their bottom.
A bottom to a drunk or addict isn’t a place - it doesn’t have to land you on the street or in jail, etc. - it is a moral and for me spiritual bankruptcy that I had to reach in order to make a decision. A decision to not only not drink but to completely alter my entire life.
If Reynolds wasn’t governor now none of this would matter (unless she got behind the wheel of a car drunk again) but she is governor. Calling in that favor - and having a willing bunch of co-dependent ole’ boys comply - in getting Reynolds out of that 2nd OWI - to me was depriving her of a real bottom.
I get it. In the short term I wanted to be given the Worlds Biggest Break back when I was arrested - but in the long run I am glad I wasn’t.
Reynolds doesn’t live like a person who was given the chance of a lifetime. She doesn’t live like someone who was thisclosetolosingitall - becuase she never really did. I don’t know what her mental life was like back then when she was arrested on her 2nd OWI - she could have been tortured (and probably was if she was a drunk like me - we beat the shit out of ourselves). But given the opportunity to actually be a role model, Reynolds still only has one tool in her toolbox. And she is using that hammer from a position of power to lie, to pass racist and ableist bills that will impact Iowa’s most vulnerable people.
Drunks remain dangerous even without a drink. Mercifully only to ourselves or at worst those closest to us. Living on lies including lies of ommission or pointed hurtful lies would make lead me to be fearful: what lie did I tell this person? What lie did I tell that person? How can I make sure my web of lies doesn’t come crashing down.
It’s vicious the lies and fear. But my decisions about how to live with my addiction (even without the booze) is no skin off your ass.
But if I were in a position of power? I would want to make you as miserable as I am through any means possible. I feel for Reynolds the way I feel for all suffering addicts - in and out of their cups.
But not for very long. She was given a second chance no one reading this would have ever gotten. And with that chance she has made a conscious decision to lie, inflict policy violence and pain across Iowa in her position as governor. And it is conscious decision. Because here’s a little secret: once you have been sober for any amount of time that lives in your head. I can’t unknow the truth of who I am if I drink or live without character or integrity. I am just thankful I don’t ever have to live in the tortured mind of a dishonest drunk - booze or not - ever again.
PS Excellent piece. Thank you
I’m reading Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Poignant for me. 🙏Namaste