The Man I Once Was
How I Turned my Life Around After 2 DWIs
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July 26th, 2015
As I sat, handcuffed, in the back of a police car, I watched helplessly as my arresting officer rifled through my vehicle while my hazard lights flashed. I was in disbelief, denial. This couldn’t be happening. This can’t be happening. Not again.
We waited there until a tow truck came to take my 2006 Nissan Altima to the impound lot. I was pulled over for running a red light as I left the SuperAmerica on 66th St and 35W in Richfield, MN.
I was stopping on the way home from a longer-than-planned Happy Hour to pick up a pack of American Spirits. I pulled out, went through what seemed like a yellow light to me, and had flashing lights in my rearview faster than I could have imagined. At first, I was certain he was going around me. Nope.
Breathe, Andy. After a series of “field sobriety tests”, I blew into a breathalyzer.
I bargained, begged, and pleaded with the officer all the way to the Richfield police station. He pulled out a phone book and said I could call a lawyer. Shamefully, I already had the number of my lawyer saved on my phone. I called, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t try that hard honestly. Looking back, I should have called every lawyer in the phone book to stall taking the real breathalyzer at the station, but, hey, I was on a roll.
I still don’t think I believed that it was going to happen. Something inside me thought that there was no way I was over the limit. The officer led me into another room, where they had a sophisticated machine for measuring blood alcohol content.
I blew.
I watched as the machine worked, processing the data in my breath.
.089
Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck.
I called my old roommate to come grab my keys, so he could get my dog from my apartment. I would not be home to let her out.
I rode, handcuffed again, in the back of that police car downtown. I was spending the night in jail.
There’s a series of doors in an underground ramp that lead me to where I was booked. They took my fingerprints and my photo and collected all of the belongings I had on me. I changed into an orange jumpsuit.
Someone brought me to a large room with 20-30 beds. This ordeal began when I was pulled over in Richfield around 10:30pm on Sunday night.
Around 3am Monday morning, I laid down on a hard “bed”, praying that this had all been a bad dream. Praying to God, please let this be a dream. I’ll do anything. I’ll change.
Please. Let. This. Be. A. Dream.
Waking Up in Jail
I woke up the next morning, and I was afraid to even open my eyes. I could hear other men shuffling around as the sun illuminated what was a dark room when I closed my eyes.
If I open my eyes, it’s real, I thought. It’s real anyways, Andy. Get your ass up.
I had to do something. I was supposed to be at work at some point today and I had to contact a lawyer so I could post bail. Every second I spent here was hell, a reminder of what a fucking failure and loser I am.
In jail, they have phones, but you make “collect” calls. That means that whoever you call has to accept the charges. I grabbed a phone book and scanned for DWI attorneys. I got hold of one, explained what was up, and he got to work for me.
I had to call someone who could post 10% of my bail, which was set at $3,000. I’m sure my mom would have preferred a different context for a Monday morning phone call.
She picked up the phone. A recording started: “Collect call from Hennepin County Jail from (beep. my voice now) ‘Andy Hansen’”. I can imagine her internal reaction.
I told her where I was and what I needed. She sent the money to the Bail Bond shop, conveniently located down the street from Hennepin County Jail.
Then, I waited.
Rock Bottom
No one cares about you, really, when you’re in jail. That’s how it feels, anyway. The guards don’t care. I don’t blame them. No one knew when I would get out. There’s a backlog of people who need to be discharged on Monday mornings since they don’t process over the weekend. They don’t tell you anything.
It seems wise to assume that I could be here a while, yet I can’t resist getting my hopes up every time the guards call someone’s name.
It feels weird to make small talk with your fellow detainees. They’ve got Maury Povich on TV in there, so that’s not helping my mental health. Some guys paced around. Many chatted.
What did I do?
I thought about every decision I’ve ever made in my life.
How did I get here? How is this my reality? How did I become a guy who gets not one, but two DWIs? How could I be so stupid?
I deserve to be here. This isn’t some mistake. This is all my fault. This is who I am.
I’m the type of person who spends a night in jail. Who has to call his mom to tell her he’s in jail and needs to be bailed out.
Breaking the Illusion
Waking up in jail, and spending most of the day with people who had spent the weekend there was eye-opening. This is not who I want to be. “I’m better than this,” I thought.
I wasn’t, though.
It’s not like this was my first time driving after drinking. I deserved to be here, amongst others who had committed crimes. Looking back, this was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
This was a moment where I was forced to confront my own self-delusion. I am not who I think I am. I’m definitely not who I want other people to think I am. No denying this.
“How much of a lie am I living, exactly?” I wondered.
By the grace of God, I was released that day. Most of the guys had been there all weekend. Some were brought in Thursday and were still waiting to be released on Monday morning. I spent a little over 12 hours in that cell.
My sister picked me up, and we barely made it to the impound lot before they closed to get my car back. I prayed that I had enough money in my checking account to cover it. I texted my boss and made something up. I picked up my dog.
Finally, I was home. I let out a sigh of ominous relief as I sat down on my couch. I really fucked it up this time.
This wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of something. I didn’t know what yet, but I knew I had to change.
My drivers license would be revoked for a year in a few days time. Now, the real fight begins.
The fight to make sure that I never, ever end up here again.
Placing it in a Wider Context
As I mentioned, this was not my first time getting into trouble for drinking and driving. I wish I could say it was only my second. This was the third instance.
Summer after high school, I was ticketed for “Underage Drinking and Driving”, which is what they give to kids under 21 if they’ve had a drop of alcohol and get behind the wheel.
In 2012, I was charged with my first DWI and pleaded guilty in court. My relationship with alcohol had caused problems in my life before.
This time, I was pulled over on July 26, 2015, about a month after I had moved into my own place in Uptown Minneapolis. I had just gone through some shifts in my life and I realized I needed to move. Before that, I was living with some friends in Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis.
I spent almost every weekend there going out and getting drunk. Our regular bar? The warm embrace of Cowboy Jack’s in Bloomington, MN. We got together over Fireball shots, beers, and cigarettes with the good ole boys every Saturday like clockwork.
While I was in the process of transitioning to my new life in Uptown, I felt lonely. I didn’t know many people around yet. So, I yearned for my old life. I called up my old roommate and we met at Jack’s for a Sunday Funday Happy Hour.
This is all really important to what I learned from this. I was 28 years old, entering my Saturn Return, and I was being pulled in a new direction, to find myself in a new lifestyle. For me to go right back into the belly of the beast, and to drink and drive was really tempting fate, not to mention being obviously reckless and dangerous.
Life was telling me, “You’re done wasting your time and fucking around. It’s time to grow the fuck up and take some responsibility. Stop. No more backsliding, it’s time for you to move on.”
If I didn’t make real changes, now, something really bad was going to happen. I could hurt someone or myself.
What, exactly, needed to change?
When I examined this story, I found that what I needed in my life at the time was Agency. I had no control over my actions. I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes anymore. I didn’t want to go to the bar and get drunk anymore. I didn’t want to lie, to have my life a mess.
I just couldn’t seem to help myself. I was out of control.
I wanted to make choices for myself in alignment with my highest potential, and I couldn’t follow through on them. I didn’t know how.
I needed to develop personal agency. Personal agency is the capacity to align your life with your authentic desires. To make a decision to impact your own world, and feel like you are moving in the direction you actually want to go.
The problem? I had no idea where I wanted my life to go, or how I should go about finding out. I knew that I was dissatisfied. I knew I would try anything to avoid spending another second of my life in a jail cell.
I needed to unlearn many of the habits that got me here and learn new ones.
I needed to start writing my own story and take responsibility for its outcome.
How did I move forward?
The easy answer? Yoga.
To be honest, I wasn’t “drawn to” Yoga. Like at all. I was told enough times by people who do Yoga that I ought to do Yoga. My height and lack of flexibility meant that I had a lot to gain from systematic, consistent stretching. I went because it was different from anything else I did at the time, and I needed something different.
I hated Yoga when I first started. It was excruciating. I was bad at it. I fell behind in the sequences every time. I lost my breath I imagined I looked very silly trying. I had to rest during class. I forced myself to keep going back, to try YouTube yoga routines at home.
I prayed for the end of class every time. It was profoundly uncomfortable.
I was determined to keep going though. I thought about that night in jail a lot. I thought about having a breathalyzer in my car. I thought about being on house arrest for 3 weeks. I thought about having a court-ordered homing device on my ankle. I thought about living a lie. My life was a lie.
That is why I kept going. I was determined to never put my mom through that experience again. To never find myself completely out of control again. I honestly hated yoga at first.
I wanted to believe I wasn’t that guy. Now, knowing that I was that guy was enough to lean into the discomfort of change, indefinitely, without seeing the fruits of my labor.
I needed to close the gap between the person I was and the person I wanted to be. This had to be my top priority.
I changed. I left many friends behind. I had very few friends for a while.
Then, I made new friends who liked yoga and other stuff that was new to me.
Many of whom have now become old friends.
As I grow into the man I know I can be, I continue to find myself in these in-between spaces. Even now, as my values again shift, I find myself looking for a new group of people who value what I value - hard work, family, and building something to last beyond my time here.
Why?
I tell this story because most people who know me now are surprised to find out about the man I was…not that long ago. When I shared with someone recently that I had smoked cigarettes for 13 years, he was very surprised. Even my wife finds it hard to imagine what it would have been like to meet me before I turned around.
The life I live now bears little resemblance to the one that led me to that jail cell. The person I am now is not the person I was then.
Before those 12 hours in a Hennepin County holding cell, I would have laughed at the assertion that I should do yoga, meditate, or practice personal development of any kind.
I would have told you that’s not who I am. Not for me. Not my thing.
I think most people who meet me now think that this life came somewhat naturally. They think that I am inherently disciplined, hard-working, or introspective. They imagine I have been walking this path for many years.
“That’s just his thing. Must be nice to know what you’re here to do.”
Nothing about the life that I live came naturally. I have built this life, brick by brick, from the crumbing facade that was my previous life.
I didn’t let go all at once. It happened over time, and I had to be presented with the need to let go.
My commitment to agency is tested every day of my life. I have to choose if I am going to continue to live a life of agency or return to my old ways.
I don’t always make the right choice. What I do, I hope, is consistently move in the general direction toward the person I think I am.
I have my sights set on actualizing my purpose and potential, and I am constantly looking over my shoulder at that jail cell, at the choices I made to end up there, at the person I once was.