Examples of Social Costs Due to DWI

Interviewer: Someone is going to be missing work, right? That’s one cost right there. What are some other examples of some social costs?

Michael Kramer: Again, these things vary so much it’s hard to be specific. Obviously, certain jobs, if you’re on an hourly rate or per diem rate and you miss a day’s work, that’s a cost. There are certain jobs that you need a license for. You can lose your job so the cost becomes substantial.

Other than that, these are common sense things as to whether a DWI or alcohol related conviction is going to affect your employment, but there’s no way to be specific because it varies with each job. If you’re working for a company 20 to 30 years and they’re extremely happy with your production, they may ignore a first offense DWI if you get alcohol treatment. On the other hand, if you’ve only been working a year or two it may cost you your job.

Interviewer: Someone may have some transportation issues as well.

Michael Kramer: Right. If you don’t have a license whatsoever and you need to get to work and there’s no public transportation available or you have to drive for work, it is not unheard of to hear of people with resources to hire their own drivers to take them around, so you can imagine those costs.

The Domino Effect

Interviewer: Have you seen a client before where they have this domino effect of once they’ve gotten a DUI conviction, there are things just happen socially where it’s very difficult for them to recover from that after that?

Michael Kramer: Well, most of the time you really don’t hear about those effects. Those are over time and you don’t hear about those consequences, but those are not legal consequences. They’re social consequences and, therefore, common sense would apply. If somebody calls me and says to me, “By the way, Mike, as a result of that DWI this is what happened to me,” and they go through a litany of bad things, then I would become aware of it but that has not happened in my experience.

Interviewer: Would you agree that if someone were going to lose their job, it could lead to issues with their family, and it could then lead to more costs?

Michael Kramer: Certainly, again you can apply common sense. If a person loses their job – their livelihood – and they have bills to pay and a mortgage to meet, it can have a cascading effect and it can devastate a family. There’s always that potential but obviously you try to minimize it as much as possible.

There have been incidences where I, at the request of a client, contacted their employers and tried to minimize the situation as much as possible.

Again, it’s a common sense approach it’s not a legal approach. There is always the possibility of job loss and that’s a consequence someone has be aware of when they acknowledge guilt to an alcohol related incident.