Before I tell you what happened that Friday night, I need you to understand who my daughter was.
Allison was 25. She was a resident doctor, which meant most weeks she was exhausted in a way I don't think the rest of us really understood.
Becoming a doctor had been her dream for as long as I can remember.
By 25 she was already working hospital shifts that seemed impossible to me. She had been there for codes, emergencies, terrified families and the moments when somebody's entire life changed in a hospital hallway.
She had already helped save more lives than I could count.
But outside the hospital she was still just Allison.
She had her own apartment. A dog she treated like a child. A 22 year old younger brother who could annoy her more than anyone on earth and who she was still unbelievably close with.
They called each other about everything.
She was responsible. She understood medicine. She understood the human body better than almost anyone in our family.
And she still could not feel what 0.087 BAC felt like.
I didn't understand that sentence yet.
I wish I never had to.
The Last Phone Call
Allison called me from the restaurant parking lot.
It wasn't unusual for her to call late. Sometimes she called after work. Sometimes from the grocery store. Sometimes just because she was bored driving home.
I asked where she was and she told me dinner had just ended.
Then I asked the question mothers ask.
“How much did you drink?”
“Mom, relax. Two glasses of wine. We've been sitting there forever.”
She sounded completely normal.
No slurring. No strange pauses. No laughing at nothing. Nothing in her voice that sounded like the version of “drunk” I had carried around in my head my entire life.
But I still told her to leave the car there.
“Just get an Uber. Pick it up tomorrow.”
She did that little sigh adult daughters do when they think their mother is worrying about nothing.
Then she said the last words I ever heard my daughter say.
“Mom, I feel completely fine.”
I told her I loved her.
She said she loved me too.
Then the call ended.
Her Phone Called Me Again
Seventeen minutes later, Allison's name appeared on my phone again.
I remember smiling.
I thought she was calling to tell me she had made it home.
I answered expecting my daughter.
A man's voice answered instead.
“Is this Allison's mother?”
I stood up so quickly my chair fell over behind me.
He told me he was a police officer.
He said there had been a serious accident.
He said we needed to come to the hospital.
I kept asking him whether she was okay.
He wouldn't answer the question the way I wanted him to.
The Drive To The Hospital
My husband drove.
I don't remember most of the roads.
I remember calling Allison's brother.
I remember staring at my phone.
I remember thinking that if this were truly terrible, somebody would have told us already.
I kept inventing explanations that ended with her being alive.
Broken leg.
Surgery.
A concussion.
Anything that still ended with me walking into a room and seeing my daughter.
A doctor met us at the hospital and took us into a small private room.
Two chairs.
A box of tissues.
A framed picture on the wall.
I knew from his face before he opened his mouth.
Allison did not survive.
There are things your brain does when something is too large to understand.
Your daughter has just died and somehow you are wondering whether anyone remembered to feed her dog.
You notice the tissues.
You notice the picture on the wall.
You hear your husband breathing beside you.
Your mind keeps finding tiny things because the actual thing is impossible to hold all at once.
Allison knew that road.
The weather was clear.
No rain.
No snow.
No ice.
Her car was only a few years old.
I needed there to be an answer.
Police investigated what happened.
- The vehicle was inspected for obvious mechanical problems.
- Her coworkers were interviewed.
- The road was examined.
- Tire marks were examined.
- Nearby camera footage and available vehicle information were reviewed.
- No other vehicle appeared to have forced her off the road.
- No obvious mechanical failure explained what happened.
The officer eventually walked me through what the investigation suggested.
Allison entered the curve without anything looking dramatically wrong.
As the car began drifting toward the edge, her correction came too late.
So did the braking.
Not dramatically late.
Just late enough.
Then He Told Me Her Number
The officer explained that alcohol impairment was relevant to the investigation and could have affected judgment or response.
He wasn't telling me that one number could explain every movement of the car.
He was explaining why the number mattered.
0.087 BAC
I stared at him.
“But she sounded completely normal.”
“She probably felt completely normal too.”
That was the sentence that changed everything for me.
You Don't Have To Look Drunk For Alcohol To Matter Behind The Wheel
The officer explained that alcohol does not have to make somebody stumble, slur or look obviously drunk before it can matter while driving.
Driving is hundreds of tiny reactions happening over and over again.
The difference between reacting now and reacting slightly later can matter.
That doesn't mean BAC alone definitively explains every part of a crash.
It means feeling normal does not tell you whether alcohol may be affecting the decisions you make behind the wheel.
“She was a doctor. She understood the human body. She still could not feel 0.087.”
My daughter spent years learning how to keep other people alive.
She had helped save more lives than I could count.
But on the night she needed one simple number to protect her own life, she did not have it.
That is what finally broke the belief I had carried my entire life.
Feeling normal is not a measurement.
Being intelligent does not make you able to feel a BAC.
Knowing your own body does not make you able to see a number that isn't there.
What The Officer Showed Me
I finally asked him the question that had been circling in my head.
“How are people supposed to know?”
“You can't feel a number.”
Then he told me something I didn't expect.
He said he keeps personal breathalyzers in his own adult children's cars.
“I trust my kids. I just don't ask them to guess a number they can't feel.”
He went to his vehicle and showed me the kind of device his own family uses.
It was called the SoberSense Pro Breathalyzer.
What struck me wasn't anything complicated.
It was that the information existed before the keys had to turn.
Personal BAC Screening
SoberSense Pro Breathalyzer
- BAC reading in seconds
- Compact enough for a glove box
- Fuel cell sensor technology
- 100-Day Risk-Free Trial + 3-Year Warranty
Then It Happened Again — Except This Time We Had A Number
Later, Allison's brother went to a work dinner.
Dinner. Drinks. Conversation.
The kind of normal evening our family would barely have thought about before.
When he got back to the car, he felt completely normal.
But because of what had happened to his sister, there was now a SoberSense in the car.
He used it.
The number was higher than he expected.
I stared at those words.
The exact feeling Allison had trusted.
But this time there was another piece of information.
ALLISON HAD A FEELING.
MY SON HAD A NUMBER. This time nothing happened.
No phone call in the middle of the night.
No officer.
No hospital.
He got an Uber.
He came home.
He picked up the car the next day.
Nothing happened.
I cannot adequately explain how beautiful the words “nothing happened” can become after your family has lived through the alternative.
Feeling Fine vs Knowing
Before Allison, these were the kinds of things that sounded reasonable to me.
Feeling Fine
- “I only had two.”
- “I ate dinner.”
- “I waited.”
- “I know my body.”
- “I feel completely normal.”
Knowing
- Shows your BAC.
- Removes the guess.
- Gives you information before the car moves.
The safest choice after drinking is not to drive. A personal breathalyzer should never be treated as permission to drive after consuming alcohol.
Why I Bought Three
After my son's work dinner, I stopped thinking about a personal breathalyzer as something only a certain type of person needed.
I thought about the people I wanted to have a number available before they ever had to make that decision.
One for my husband.
One for myself.
Not because I distrust any of us.
Because I now understand that trusting somebody and asking their body to estimate BAC are two completely different things.
“I cannot put one in Allison's car anymore.”
If you want to see the personal breathalyzer our family now keeps in the car, you can read more about SoberSense Pro here.
SEE SOBERSENSE PRO →I Keep Going Back To 10:41 PM
I know exactly what I would say if I could answer that phone call again.
“I would give everything I own to go back to 10:41 that Friday night.”
I would still tell her to leave the car.
I would still tell her to get an Uber.
But now I understand something I did not understand then.
When somebody says they feel fine, there is no reason to argue about whether the feeling is real.
Allison really did feel fine.
“If someone you love ever says, ‘I feel completely fine,’ don't argue about the feeling. Tell them to check the number.”
PUT A NUMBER IN THEIR HAND →