Hope Solo pleads guilty to driving while impaired: 'Easily the worst mistake of my life'
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Jul 25, 2022
Former U.S. star Hope Solo was sentenced to a term of 24 months, all suspended, after she pleaded guilty in a North Carolina court on Monday to driving while impaired.
On March 31, she was found passed out behind the wheel of a car with her two small children asleep in the backseat in a Walmart parking lot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.24 and Delta-9 THC in her system.
The 24-month sentence issued by Forsyth County Chief District Court Judge Victoria L. Roemer was in line with Level One North Carolina DWI sentencing, punishable by a fine up to $4,000 and a minimum jail sentence of 30 days and a maximum of 24 months.
Solo, 40, received an active sentence of 30 days in late April as a special condition of probation and received credit for 30 days spent at an in-patient rehabilitation facility. She was also ordered to pay court costs of $2,500 and $600 for the costs of the lab results
• In a statement, Solo said she "made a huge mistake. Easily the worst mistake of my life. I underestimated what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become."
— Hope Solo (@hopesolo) July 25, 2022
Most people won't realize how serious Hope's situation is. She needs to never use alcohol or illegal drugs again, ever. Unlike most states, North Carolina's traffic laws are criminal. Running a stop sign is a crime. Changing lanes without signalling is a crime. The idea is that a 2-year suspended prison sentence will give her incentive to change. Usually it doesn't work.
I wish her success.
Knowing the roller coaster life that alcoholics live, one day sober and the next staring at oblision and everything inbetween I know she did not get to the point of driving intoxicted in a day. She knows it is much worse than falling asleep at the wheel with her children in her care. She knows that her children and husband have been suffering the entire journey to this point and sadly, it has not been enough to make her change course.
She is probably lucky she has not died multiple times or killed someone else. She is lucky she has not had multiple seizures during stints of abstinence that could also have happened while driving.
She is very lucky that she has avoided those tragedies. But I can guarantee they will happen one day if she does not realize how lucky she has been and begin to stop making excuses or playing the denial game.
Far too many have to hit rock bottom and lose everything before they develop the grit to stop. I'd say she better believe she is there already because alcohol was more important than the lives of those around her.