Betsy Long sentenced to 15 years in wrong-way drunk-driving crash that killed Mary Warren

• She does have responsibility.. She is the first one to admit that.. I saw first hand the sorrow and guilt she felt for Mary! She has also helped keep people alive since then..If it weren't for Betsy I would not be alive..I am not excusing her for Marys death nor is she...She has givin life to me..I love you betsy!

• I love you Betsy!!!   Dre.. I read your cards everyday they keep me going. You are a great woman.. when you get out stand up for no drunk driving! I already you know you will and you need to forgive yourself Betsy! Much love...Andrea

• Nathan, fascinating and very emotional post. Thanks for sharing it with us.

• "If someone has cancer everyone feels sorry for them, not so for the alcoholic." - ridiculous analogies like this enable drinkers to justify their behavior by claiming they have no control, it's a disease. The truth is they do have some control and can seek and get the help they need at any time - not so for cancer patients. "Betsy went straight to fatality." - if she were truly addicted since being a pre-teen, does 25 years of drinking count as "going straight to a fatality"? The only surprise is that Betsy didn't kill any other people in the prior 25 years with her irresponsible behavior. "Most of us know someone that drinks too much." - do we? My brother had a drinking problem and we intervened because we cared about him. We didn't sit back and watch him careen out of control until he killed another human with his poor decisions. Betsy's friends and family completely failed as a support network to let this self-destructive behavior continue to this extent. This person killed my close friend. Don't tell me she has no personal responsibility and that her alcoholism was like a cancer over which she had no control. My grandma with cancer doesn't choose to drive the wrong way on an interstate and kill innocent people.

• I didn't know Betsy before this tradgedy or maybe I would have tried to get her to see what she was doing with her life. Alcoholism is a disease and it does not discriminate, red, yellow, black or white, rich or poor. I am sure when Betsy was a little girl she had dreams of what she wanted to do when she grew up, and driving drunk down I-25 killing a beautiful young lady with her whole life in front of her was not part of it. If someone has cancer everyone feels sorry for them, not so for the alcoholic. Most of us know someone that drinks too much. Most get DUI's lose jobs, family and friends first and have plenty of opportunty to get the help they need to straighten out their lives. Betsy went straight to fatallity. I am not defending Betsy for her actions, more frustrated with the justice system. I believe Betsy will carry a very powerful message to others when she gets out and hopefully help young people to see what can happen when you are living your life out of control. The jails are full of people with alcohol and drug problems. Just locking them up and the tax payers footing the bill is crazy. Most get out and continue with the same life style. Force them into a rehab, not send them to a few lame alcohol classes. Just seems like the money would be better spent. Losing my wife unexpectedly I know the pain that Mary's family feels. I will continue to pray that they find some comfort soon. I am sure the world would have been a better place if Mary were still a part of it.

• Why didn't you or one of your other friends sit down with this falling down drunk and get her into a rehabilitation program well before she murdered someone? Why did not her soft-spoken father do an intervention? Reports are that she had been drinking heavily since she was a pre teen, and that time and again she would black out from ingesting too much alcohol. Note that the only time she entered rehab was after she had killed someone. And what about those so-called friends who plied her with wine that evening? If a bartender allows a customer to drink too much and that customer kills someone doesn't the barkeep get arrested too? They should be held accountable as well. Try to tell me they didn't know she was an alcoholic. No, pal, I would not have chosen to rehabilitate her. It's easy to be remorseful when you are stone cold sober and your victim is lying on a slab in a morgue. She did nothing to help herself prior to the accident and neither did her so-called friends. As a recovering alcoholic yourself, you should have been doing that. Maybe you could look around now and see if you might be able to prevent another Betsy Long. You have the tools. It would be a noble gesture. As for Betsy, she's getting off easy. She should have received the full 24 years.

• Without taking anything from Mary's family and friends and the tragedy that has been inflicted upon them, I believe that if you got the chance to sit down with Betsy, as I have, and could hear the pain in her voice, the remorse that she feels for Mary and her family, and the guilt that she lives with every day, you might have chose to rehabilitate her, not throw her in jail for 15 years. I do believe in consequences for our actions but I also believe that same thing could have happened to any of us at any time that we have got behind the wheel after drinking. Being sober now for 15 years myself, I count my blessings that I did not end up in the same situation. I'll be waiting for the day Quick gets his DUI. Doubt he'll go to jail though...

• Here's the plain truth of the matter for all you aspiring alcoholics, of which I count myself as one. Alcoholism is a DEADLY DISEASE which if left untreated will cause one's death, and as we have seen in this case, the death of others. If you are alcoholic, and believe that you can still drink and function like others, you are sadly mistaken and unfortunately like in the case of Betsy may have to find their bottom in the walls of a cell.

• She deserved to be charged with homicide. She did something stupid and someone ended up dead. If she'd taken a gun, acted irresponsibly and killed someone, she would have been charged with murder and sentenced accordingly. Why when someone kills someone with a car it's somehow a lesser crime is beyond me.

• Nobody makes any kind of conscious decision to do anything with a BAC of .252. One is utterly deranged at that level of alcohol toxicity. DA Quick has about as much knowledge of science and chemistry as a first-grader when he makes statements like the one he made. We can all be certain Quick has been at that extent of toxicity at some point earlier in his life and made decisions that could have as catastrophic and deadly if fate had not been in his favor.

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