LAKE COUNTY — Team DUI speaker Shane Idland battled an addiction to alcohol for much of his life before it eventually put him in a wheelchair.
“I had this auto accident that put me in this chair; (it was) my fourth DUI,” Idland said. That crash occurred more than 17 years ago and it changed Idland”s life forever.
Idland, 47, grew up all over Northern California and said he got into drinking and recreational marijuana use as a teenager in Guerneville.
“There”s dysfunctional drinking and alcoholic tendencies in my family,” he said. “Once I got into high school, the parties and alcohol, marijuana (use happened) whenever and as soon as (possible) if there was something or we could all pitch in and get a 12-pack or a case (of beer).”
Idland got into his first crash in high school when he drove after drinking. “I was driving home and hit another vehicle,” he said. “I abandoned my car and took off.” He was not caught but did have to pay to get the car out of impound.
At 17, Idland signed up for the U.S. Army infantry and became a part of the 101st Airborne Division from 1982 to 1984. While in the army, Idland began getting into trouble because of his drinking.
“I received three Article 15s,” he said. “Those are for disobedience, for like when you don”t show up for formation, when you fight with the sergeant ?cause you”re coming home drunk.” He said he got into a fight with a sergeant one night after drinking. He received his third disobedience reprimand and was discharged for conduct unbecoming of a soldier.
While he was still in the military, he got into a car wreck on a rainy night. He borrowed a friend”s car to leave the bar and get his checkbook back at the base. “I lost control,” he said. “I did hit another vehicle. I fled from the scene.” He parked the car somewhere and pretended the car was stolen when he arrived on the base. The true story was discovered and Idland was ordered to undergo military drug and alcohol counseling at 18.
After leaving the military, Idland moved to Redding and met his first wife at 20. They relocated to Reno, Nev. and started a family. Idland”s drinking continued to be problematic and he got his first DUI at 21. The next year, his marriage collapsed. By this time, he was in the full throes of his addiction.
“I was self-absorbed, selfish, only (thought) about myself. (I would drive) knowing I didn”t have a license,” he said.
He met another woman and got married but it again ended in divorce after 2 1/2 years. During this time, he received his second DUI in 1990 at age 25. Idland admitted the alcohol was the reason for both his first marriages collapsing. “I wasn”t trustworthy,” he said.
He was ordered to attend 90 Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings in 90 days, an additional three meetings a week over the next nine months and undergo drug and alcohol counseling for one year in lieu of jail time. He had just gotten a job as a correctional officer.
In the summer of 1993, Idland moved from Carson City, Nev. to Weaverville and got a job at a local bar. Idland said he got his third DUI while there and stole money to feed his addiction.
“Just like all my other jobs in the past, either I didn”t show up ”cause I was too drunk (or) money was missing out of the till; one or the other,” he said. “It depended on how insane or stupid I was at the time. I didn”t make enough to supply all the alcohol and recreational drugs (I was using).”
He only stayed in Weaverville for a few months before moving on to Redding, where his uncle helped him find work as a ranch hand in Fort Bidwell. “(It was) good, clean, hard work that helped me get away from all my dysfunctional friends,” he said.
It was while working at the ranch in the far northeast corner of the state that Idland had his crash and fourth DUI that crippled him. He said he was driving along a road on his way back to the ranch.
“At the end of that straightaway heading northbound to the ranch, there”s a 15-mile-an-hour turn,” he said. “That night I went through that turn, flipped over the truck and it pushed me out the back window into the bed of the truck where I broke my neck at the C5, C6 (vertebrae), aspirated my whole right lung, crushed my rib cage (and) suffered a few other little broken body parts.”
Idland said he was airlifted to Mercy Medical Center in Redding and spent three months in intensive care on a ventilator, celebrating his 30th birthday in the hospital. He can no longer feel below his chest and lacks much dexterity in his hands. He said he swore off drugs and alcohol as he entered a three-month occupational and physical rehabilitation program but was depressed and began drinking again.
“My disease of alcoholism was more powerful than my desire to stop drinking,” he said. “You would think all these little things that happened, you would have hit your bottom: divorce, separated, going to jail. But I just wasn”t ready at that time.”
Following another failed relationship in 1996, Idland said he finally realized his problem. “I went into the Redding Alano Club and started my sobriety,” he said. It was Aug. 29, 1996.
Idland began attending Shasta Community College in the spring of 1996 and obtained an associate”s degree in 1999 before moving on to Simpson University in Redding, where he obtained a bachelor”s degree in psychology. In 2005, he took a state test and landed his job as a senior vocational rehabilitation counselor at the state Department of Rehabilitation in Lakeport.
Idland married his “best friend” Sandy in 2005 at the Lake County Courthouse shortly after their move here. “She understands my sobriety and she”s just glad that she never knew me in the past,” he said.
He said he has repaired many broken relationships with his family and relatives and also re-established relationships with his son and daughter from his first marriage. He said they call him “dad” now. He also has four grandchildren. Idland said he refuses to be around alcohol now, having changed his lifestyle and whom he chooses to have as friends.
Idland was asked to join Team DUI as a speaker in 2009 after he began going to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility in 2007 to talk to inmates about AA as part of giving back to the community. He said the sight of him in his wheelchair is beneficial to getting out Team DUI”s message to high school students.
“God”s given me a great visual tool; this electric wheelchair I use for mobility first captures their attention,” he said. “I feel great to bring awareness to them at a young age.”
Idland said he”s happy to be recognized for his volunteering and that he isn”t so self-centered anymore. “Things like that really mean a lot to me,” he said.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
