People make bad choices on the road, but become better people from life lessons

I spend every single day of my life hearing from potential clients who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I rarely talk to a person who I would consider a "bad person" - 99.9 percent of the people who contact me are good people, with jobs, families and big goals in life.  

Some clients reach out and tell me they made a "mistake" - I quickly address that mindset, and help the client discover that they made a "choice" rather than a mistake. I also tell them that it's OK if they did something they regret, and with the right approach, we are very likely able to successfully address the majority of their concerns, and help them learn from those choices. We are human, we are not always using out best judgment, and sometimes "A" happens to avoid "B" from happening, and we need to embrace what life brings us, even if life gets difficult or stressful - it's likely a short-term thing rather than long-term.  

Events in life happen for a reason - it may not seem like it in the moment, but choices and outcomes do happen for a reason. I tend to think that a manageable situation happens before something that is not manageable happens at a later point. The clearest example is a drunk driving case. 

Drunk driving outcomes (levels of severity) are based on "the other parties". A person driving drunk will get away with the crime if they don't encounter a police officer; in fact more people drive drunk each day, and don't get caught then do get caught. Everyone agrees drunk driving should be against the law, but when you're arrested, you tend to feel bad for yourself and wish you didn't get caught. That's a very normal human reaction, and an isolated incident alone does not make you a bad person. I want people to learn from it, and never do it again, rather than bury their heads in the sand and do it again.  

But let's add an element to the case and view the "it happened for a reason". If you have no prior drunk driving offenses, or maybe one prior, a DUI arrest is still a misdemeanor. Yes, there could be jail time, loss of license and a criminal conviction, but all of those can be negotiated, avoided or amended. Your life goes on, and hopefully you never find yourself back in that situation again. But what happens if this arrest never happened?

What if we add another vehicle or a pedestrian to the facts? What if you drive the same exact way, but now with added parts, your actions seriously injure someone else, yourself, or someone is killed? There is no going back from that, and there is nothing to negotiate or  fix - those are permanent outcomes.  
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You made a bad choice, it's likely manageable if handled the right way, let's get to work.