Two DWI offenders finish sober program

First grads in Pulaski County full of praise; learned to ‘live without it,’ man says

Two men convicted of driving drunk multiple times heaped praise Tuesday on a Pulaski County court diversion program for helping them avoid alcohol for several months.

“I never knew I would be able to live without it,” said Wardell Robinson, 42, whose daily liquid diet consisted of beer and cognac before he was arrested last year for his second DWI.

As the first two people to finish the new yearlong program, Robinson and 36-yearold Forta Jones ate cake and drank punch in Pulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber’s courtroom.

Each also received a gift. Robinson’s was a gift card to Applebee’s.

Gruber’s sobriety court, which began in August 2016, is one of roughly 12 in Arkansas and 726 across the country. People with multiple DWI offenses or whose blood alcohol content was more than four times the legal limit of 0.08 percent in a first offense are eligible for the program.

Drunken drivers who participate can avoid incarceration and fines in exchange for a year of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings — including 90 in the first 90 days — and regular drug tests, face-toface meetings with Gruber and treatment sessions through Recovery Centers of Arkansas.

Participants’ driver’s licenses are suspended, and they can be sentenced to jail time if they do not meet all the requirements or drop out of the program, Gruber said.

At least 160 Arkansans participated in sobriety court programs between May 1 and Sept. 1 of this year, said Bettina Toth, research analyst for the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts. Thirty-three people graduated and nine people left the programs in that span, Toth said.

Of 470 people killed in Arkansas crashes in 2014, 206 — or 44 percent — died in wrecks where one of the drivers was determined to be impaired by alcohol or drugs, according to the most recent Arkansas State Police data.

Independence County District Judge Chaney Taylor created Arkansas’ first sobriety court in Batesville in 2009. Other sobriety courts are in Arkadelphia, Benton, Bentonville, Conway, Harrison, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, Sherwood and Van Buren, Toth said.

Five people are participating in the Pulaski County program now, after two others recently dropped out, Gruber said. Hundreds of DWI cases go through the court each year, though most are firsttime offenses, Gruber said.

Sobriety court participants must be accepted by the court after a clinical screening, the judge said. The program, which saves taxpayer money that would be spent on jailing offenders, costs little to no money to run, Gruber said. His regular court staff administers the program with participation from the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices.

To graduate, participants must complete each phase of the program, maintain sobriety for at least 120 consecutive days and have a support system in place to help them remain sober.

Robinson, an instrument technician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, depicted alcoholism as a puppet master. The diversion program helped him “cut through those strings” and “get control back over my life,” he said.

“It was something new,” Robinson said. “I was nervous, I was scared, I wanted to give it a try.”

Jones, who works for Little Rock’s street department, said he realized he needed help after his third DWI in five years.

“I figured I had a problem, and I needed a little help,” Jones said. “It works. But you’ve got to want it to work, and you’ve got to take it one day at a time. If you don’t drink today, do it again the next day and do it again the next day. Before you know it, once you’ve stopped for so long, you don’t have a desire for it.”

More than 2 million people in the United States have been convicted of DWI at least three times, according to the National Center for DWI Courts, a Virginia group that advocates for sobriety courts. Participants in such programs, which target the addiction that underlies intoxicated driving, are less likely to drive drunk again, according to the group.