It’s amazing how clearly you can remember the worst day of your life.

Nearly six years have passed and Katherine Paulette Chambers can recite in stunning detail what June 8, 2010 looked and felt like. “It was a Sunday evening and I remember it really well,” says the retired medical technologist. “It was one those crisp blue days that you have sometimes in June.”

In fact, Chambers likens the day to the weather on 9/11—strikingly clear skies and the absolute absence of any premonition of tragedy. The comparison is apt, because that evening, a drunk driver slammed into the car carrying Chambers’ 32-year-old daughter Ruth Bass, a single mother of three, and her boyfriend who were returning home from the movies.

“I tend to call him her fiancée; I know they were planning on getting married but he had not actually popped the question yet,” she says, listing yet another detail that rounds out the memory.

A few months after the couple’s death, Chambers felt compelled to share her daughter’s story as a means of coping with her grief. She started by giving talks at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville where she worked. On a friends’ suggestion, she reached out to the Arkansas chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). After a brief interview, she was invited to speak at MADD’s Victim Impact Panels, which provides support to victims and survivors at no charge.

For Chambers, telling her daughter’s story was so therapeutic she took every opportunity to address MADD VIP groups, up to eight times a month. “I love the word ‘cathartic,’ that’s exactly what it was,” she says. “They were a captive audience and I needed to talk.”

Changing Attitudes

Attitudes toward underage drinking, and drinking and driving at any age, have changed dramatically since MADD formed in California almost 36 years ago. While American society still grapples with addiction issues, fewer and fewer people are laughing about them.

“I think the biggest change has been some of the parents’ attitudes toward alcohol,” says Mareecca Lawson of MADD’s Arkansas State Office in Little Rock. “I think they’ve kind of changed their attitude as far as talking to kids about not drinking before 21. Parents used to compromise based upon their own past experiences with alcohol. They figured, ‘Well, I turned out OK, so…’”

“But today, it’s not just parents, but adults in general who have the attitude about not drinking before 21. That’s what’s made the biggest impact.”

Lawson says public sentiment is so strong that MADD’s message has transcended victims and their families and begun to sink into the wider community of people who haven’t had a personal experience with such tragedies. MADD’s ability to mobilize a wider population, even those who haven’t been personally impacted, is a key success factor to its stated goal of “No More Victims.” To that end, Lawson leaves no stone unturned when it comes to getting out MADD’s name and message, speaking at schools and churches, and holding workshops to reach an important audience—parents.

Family Communication

“Parents, just start talking and keep talking and talking,” Lawson likes to say. In fact, PowerTalk 21 is the name of MADD’s program that helps parents tackle the subject of alcohol with their kids. The organization’s website states that kids start developing perceptions about alcohol when they are 8 years old, and continue to change those ideas as they grow.

The good news is that parents are the number one influence for children’s perception of alcohol. Even if a child doesn’t seem interested in drinking, it’s important for parents to communicate their expectations. One MADD resource states, “Teens whose parents communicate that underage drinking is completely unacceptable are more than 80 percent less likely to drink than teens who receive other messages.” MADD suggests communicating a strong stance to your teen, such as: “We have a family agreement that there is absolutely no drinking alcohol before age 21. It’s illegal and very dangerous.”

Luckily, parents who are at a loss for words can download a free handbook on the MADD website; the resource helps parents navigate the ongoing conversations with middle school kids and high schoolers. The handbook guides parents on when, where and how to talk to your kids, whether or not to bring up your own history with drugs or alcohol, the physical effects of drinking, ways to resist negative peer pressure and more.

And, parents in Arkansas also have a resource like Lawson, who spreads the organization’s message anywhere she can find an audience. “There’s a lack of information about who MADD is and what we’re trying to do,” she says. “Once we get that understanding, we get more people invested.”

Striking Out Drunk Driving

On April 21, MADD will sponsor the Travelers game at Dickey-Stephens Park to promote PowerTalk 21, a program that helps parents broach the subject of underage drinking,

Report to the MADD booth near the box office from 5:30-7 p.m. to receive up to four free tickets to the game (available to the first 150 fans). To get your free tickets, all you have do is sign a pledge committing to talk to your teen about alcohol and not drinking until age 21!

MADD volunteers will also be on hand to provide parents with information on talking to their teen about alcohol. What’s more, game attendees may enter to win $250 when they download the PowerTalk 21 parent handbook from the MADD website. The handbook must be downloaded April 18-21 at MADD.org/PowerTalk21 to be entered in the drawing.