A drunk driver killed her 13-year-old brother, but this woman still drove drunk. Why?

Judy Wells lost her brother to a drunk driver when he was only 13 — it never stopped her from drunk driving herself. 

When she was an active alcoholic, the Toronto woman says she had this feeling of invincibility any time she drank that convinced her she could get behind the wheel. 

“The thought of what happened to my brother never stopped me from getting into a car,” she said.

She even drove along the same road where a driver killed her brother in 1966.

He was picked up by two teen boys who “raced through town” and flipped the car into a lake. They survived “without a scratch,” she said. “[My brother] died in the ambulance on the way to the Newmarket hospital.”

Despite education and advocacy campaigns about drunk driving’s many harms — emotional, financial and legal — Toronto police say incidents of impaired driving have stayed steady over the last four years. Last year, more than 2,600 people were charged with impaired driving.

In May, three children were killed after the car they were travelling in was hit by another vehicle that was allegedly speeding near Renforth Drive and Highway 401.

Ethan Lehouillier of Georgetown, Ont., was arrested at the scene. He is facing 12 charges, including three counts of impaired driving causing death.

Shortly after, Jennifer Neville-Lake, whose own three children were killed along with their grandfather by a drunk driver in a crash nearly a decade prior, shared her “grief and solidarity” in a post on social media.

Lack of education around alcohol and its impact, researcher says

Wells says she suffered from alcoholism for 22 years, a problem that ran in her family. She drank heavily in her 20s and 30s. She says she only managed to get help after a drunken blackout during a business trip forced her to re-examine her circumstances.

But when she drank and drove, Wells says she wasn’t thinking about the consequences. 

“There’s no understanding, there’s no forethought of what the possibility is that you could kill someone,” Wells told CBC Toronto.

There are a variety of reasons people drink and drive, says Dr. Christine Wickens, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). 

“Sometimes individuals aren’t well educated on the effects of alcohol on the body,” she said. “Sometimes they make a poor decision in the moment. Sometimes they are suffering from a substance use disorder like alcoholism.”

Wickens says sometimes people are more affected by alcohol than they realize and that’s why its important to get educated on the effects of alcohol on the body, and how that differs from person to person. 

“People often believe, well, I can have two drinks in an hour and still get behind the wheel,” she said. “Maybe for some [people] maybe that’s true, but not for most people.”

It is illegal in Canada for a driver to operate a vehicle if impaired by alcohol, drugs or both. Drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 per cent are considered impaired under the Criminal Code and subject to potential charges. For young, novice or commercial drivers, no alcohol can be present in the system while operating a vehicle. 

Wickens says research shows that higher rates of risky driving behaviour, including impaired driving, are committed by younger people, sometimes associated with their desire for thrill seeking behaviour, but she cautions against associating younger drivers with impaired driving. 

“The idea that it’s a young person making a dumb decision — I don’t think that’s a reasonable conceptualization of impaired driving,” she said.

“Impaired driving can happen in all age groups, all sexes and genders. It’s committed by all income groups, all ethnicities.” 

Messaging needs to change: Toronto police

Police officers are met with a whole “gamut of excuses” when people are pulled over for suspicions of impaired driving, according to Matt Moyer, acting superintendent of Traffic Services at Toronto police.

“I think impaired driving for many people is opportunity impaired driving. I don’t think people purposely go out [to drink and drive],” he said. “It’s a lot of people who are working and can’t afford to get caught. They’ll often tell you that, for one reason or another, [they’re] down on their luck, lost their job, lost their girlfriend, [their] dog died.”

Police say Sundays, between midnight and 4 a.m have had the highest rates of impaired driving occurrences over the past 11 years. 

Moyer says he’s seen a “big improvement” when it comes to people making alternative plans to get home when they know they’re going to have a night of drinking. But with actual incidents of impaired driving still holding steady year after year, he says it’s clear that messaging needs to change. 

“We live in a Netflix world right now, and I think that our marketing and our messaging has to be dynamic and impactful. Don’t wait till Christmas to put out a don’t drink and drive campaign. Do it all year round,” he said.

Once, Moyer said, somebody charged with impaired driving told him they wished they’d realized they could have avoided “spending $4,000 on a lawyer, getting arrested, going to court, losing my job” for the price of a $55 cab ride.

“That was quite impactful,” Moyer recalled.

As for Wells, at the age of 74, she’s now been sober for 33 years. She’s an advocate for treatment, even raising money to support a dedicated research chair in emergency medicine addiction and mental health at Mount Sinai Hospital.

But since getting sober, she says she’s often thought about what could have happened all those times she got behind the wheel. 

“I’m not proud of it,” Wells said. “There’s a lot of shame around what I did. I believe that I have some angels watching over me, that my brother’s number was up and mine wasn’t.”

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If you or someone you know is struggling with alcoholism, here’s where to look for help: