Live and Let Live

When I got to the AA meeting that night I struck up a conversation at the coffee pot with a newcomer named Scott.  

“I can’t do anything right,” Scott said. "I got a DUI."

 I said, “In AA people say ‘live and let live’ meaning don’t get too involved in what other people do or say. It also means live, and let the innocent live.  Driving drunk puts innocent people at risk.   Meth makes people dangerous to everyone. Cocaine fuels corruption and violence in other countries. Heroin funds terrorists.  Stay clean and sober and you won’t put anybody at risk. That's something.”

“I get what you’re saying about drugs,” Scott said, “but I drive back roads late at night coming home from the bar. Nobody on those roads but me. Getting  sober might keep me from getting another DUI, but it won’t do anybody else any good.”  A guy named Alex who had been looking over the donuts turned toward Scott and shook his head.

“Friend, I hope you never have to find out how wrong you are,” Alex said. He’d killed a mom and her twins. They were driving home from a soccer tournament in Indianapolis at 2:00 a.m. when he hit them on back road two miles from their house.  He spent ten years in prison.

Today I will live and let the innocent live.

Burnout Training ©2018 by Ken Montrose

Burnout Training is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at: www.greenbriartraining.com https://www.pinterest.com/kenmontrose/mt-rose/