TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — The night before Thanksgiving has earned notorious nicknames like "Drinksgiving," "Blackout Wednesday," and "Drunksgiving." They're all terms that make Linda Unfried's heart ache with memories of losing her sister to a drunk driver 42 years ago.
"There is no humor in what they've determined this holiday to be, none whatsoever," Unfried said. "When you've lost someone, we live it every day. It doesn't go away."
For Unfried, co-founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Hillsborough County, the casual celebration of excessive drinking before Thanksgiving represents everything she has fought against for more than four decades. What began as a personal tragedy has become a lifelong mission to prevent other families from experiencing the devastating loss that forever changed her world.
The crash happened on a night that should have been filled with joy. Unfried's parents were celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary.
After the party, the sisters said goodnight in the parking lot. Josie planned to visit her boyfriend, who worked for the post office and got off at midnight. Normally, Unfried would accompany her sister to play cards at the boyfriend's house every Friday night, but something felt different that evening.
"For whatever reason that night, I said, 'No, I don't want to go tonight. We'll do it again next Friday,'" Unfried recalled. "I never saw her again."
Both sisters had planned to meet at their parents' house the next morning to attend an art show in Ybor City. Instead, at 4:30 a.m., Unfried's nephew appeared at her door with devastating news.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, my dad's had a heart attack,' because both Josie and I had a really heavy feeling the night before, and we thought something was happening to my dad," Unfried said. "That feeling was her being killed, and I didn't know it."
When her nephew told her there had been a crash involving Josie, Unfried immediately knew from his expression that her sister was gone.
"I said, 'Take me to her. Take me to her.' He said, 'We can't,'" she remembered.
While the Unfried family celebrated their parents' milestone anniversary, a 17-year-old drunk driver was making decisions that would destroy multiple lives. After breaking up with his girlfriend, the teenager walked into a Walgreens and purchased alcohol.
"He looked 13. I don't know how they sold him alcohol, but they did," Unfried said.
The teenager consumed almost an entire bottle of alcohol before driving down the road at 80 miles per hour. A deputy had spotted him speeding and pulled out to stop him, but was diverted to respond to a shooting call. The young driver continued until he found something to stop his car: Josie's Toyota Tercel.
"He hit her head-on, and witnesses at the scene said that before she took her last breath, she called out for me," Unfried said, her voice breaking. "How do you get over that? You don't."
The investigation later revealed the teenager had been struggling with alcoholism since age 13, making his access to alcohol that night even more tragic.
The devastating loss sent Unfried into a spiral of guilt and grief. She blamed herself for not being in the car with her sister as originally planned, seeking counseling to cope with the overwhelming emotions.
"I blamed myself for not being there because I was supposed to be in the car," she said.
The path to advocacy began when Unfried and her sister watched a television story about Candy Lightner, who founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving after losing her own daughter to a drunk driver.
"We both said, 'If we ever volunteer our time, let's do it with MADD, because we have teenage kids,'" Unfried recalled. "That is one of the reasons why I co-founded it, because I remembered what we said together and that we would do that. I know she would have done it for me."
For 42 years, Unfried has dedicated her life to changing attitudes about drunk driving and preventing other families from experiencing her pain. Despite decades of work, she finds the problem is actually getting worse.
"It's really frustrating when you've worked for 42 years, which is more than half of my life, not to see people really realizing and taking responsibility for themselves," she said.
What particularly wounds Unfried is how businesses and social media users promote the dangerous holiday.
"That's really very sad, and for all the work we've been doing here and all the strides that we have made, it's hurtful. It's very hurtful for me to see businesses promoting this."
The timing compounds the pain. Unfried lost her sister in October, making the approach of Thanksgiving particularly difficult.
"I remember the first Thanksgiving with my family, none of us could get it together. We couldn't because her seat was empty. It's horrible, really, really horrible, and it brings it all back," she said.
Now, with eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild with another on the way, Unfried's mission has taken on new urgency. Many of her grandchildren are now driving age, adding to her daily worries.
"I work even harder because we have eight grandchildren, a great-grand and one great-grand on the way, and I work hard to save their lives to make sure that hopefully they're not in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "I have many grandchildren that drive now, and I worry about them, and they all know better. They know Nana doesn't put up with that."
Law enforcement prepares for the worst
Tampa Police Captain Ben Brown understands the challenge law enforcement faces on what has become one of the most dangerous nights of the year for impaired driving. The tradition dates back to his college days, when the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving became the unofficial reunion night for students returning home.
"It was known when you came back from college for vacation, or for the break, the Thanksgiving break, that that was a big night to go out," Brown said. "Wednesday night, everybody came home. You got to go see all your friends, and it became a night for celebration. And sometimes bad things happen when there's too much celebrating."
The Tampa Police Department responds with a robust DUI unit whose sole purpose is to keep citizens safe through proactive patrols targeting impaired drivers. The department uses grant funding to deploy additional officers and coordinates operations with other agencies, focusing on areas where drunk-driving incidents are expected.
"We put extra officers out. We have grants available to be able to pay officers to be out there, and we do beef up our enforcement," Brown said.
The enhanced presence extends beyond just Wednesday night, continuing through the entire holiday season.
"We can absolutely expect to see more of a presence, especially on the weekends today, starting Wednesday through the end of the weekend and all the weekends leading up to the new year," Brown explained.
Despite the increased enforcement, Brown acknowledges that telling people to stay home is a difficult message during a time meant for celebration and family gatherings.
"It is very much, especially with celebrations, families getting together that you may not have seen in a while, indulging and eating and drinking, maybe a little too much," he said.
However, Brown emphasizes that modern technology has eliminated excuses for drunk driving.
"There is absolutely zero reason to be out drinking and driving. There's so many things that are available today that weren't available 20 years ago. Ride share is a big thing, a designated driver," he said.
Brown stresses an important distinction about designated drivers that many people misunderstand.
"The big thing to remember there is a designated driver isn't the least intoxicated driver, it's the sober driver, and that's something very important that we want to put out there," he said. "And if you don't have an option, the ride share, it's an app away, it's very easy to get in contact with and get home safely."
Ellen Snelling's two decades of advocacy work
Ellen Snelling's journey into alcohol prevention began with her own family crisis. In 2000, when her daughter started using drugs and alcohol in the late 1990s, Snelling found help through the Hillsborough County Anti-Drug Alliance.
"Once I got involved, I saw that underage drinking, in particular, and DUI, I had no idea how big of a problem it was," Snelling said.
Her awakening came through witnessing the party culture in Ybor City, which was the premier destination for young people at the time.
"My daughter was going to Ybor back then, it was like THE place to go. I mean, it still is, but back then it was like kind of the only big place to go. And a lot of young people were gathering there," Snelling recalled.
A newspaper article in the Tampa Tribune featuring a 17-year-old girl discussing her drinking plans crystallized Snelling's mission. The teenager, who tried to look older than her age, was interviewed about her holiday drinking plans.
"She was talking about how much she was drinking. This was during the holidays, and she said, 'I can't wait to get, you know, have a great time, and then I'm gonna drive home,'" Snelling remembered. "Again, there's no kind of responsibility message."
When the girl's mother called MADD to report that her daughter was only 17, Snelling realized the scope of the problem.
"Once I saw that, I said, we've got to do something about underage drinking and DUI here in Hillsborough County," she said.
Snelling founded the Tampa Alcohol Coalition and has served as its chair for over 20 years, working closely with MADD, universities, police departments, and the sheriff's office to find solutions.
"I've been working in Tampa Alcohol Coalition for over 20 years, and I've been seeing the bars and clubs promote this, and they know that college students are coming in from out of town, for one thing, so I think that's part of their focus, but it's a way to make money," she said.
The promotional aspect particularly troubles Snelling, who sees a complete absence of responsibility messaging from establishments that profit from excessive drinking.
"Everybody's having fun, but where's the responsibility? Like you said, where's those messages? They just are letting each person individually make that choice of getting an Uber or Lyft home, or have one sober person, but you don't see that message coming from the bars or clubs," she said. "Now, I'm not saying every single one, but in general, that's what I've noticed, is just a big, huge party time, you know, party it up before you have to get together with your family the next day and have a standard Thanksgiving meal. Have a great time the night before, but where's the responsibility and safe driving message?"
Florida's legal framework presents unique challenges in addressing over-serving at bars and clubs. The state is among only a few without criminal laws against serving obviously intoxicated patrons, removing key incentives for responsible beverage service.
"There's no law against serving what we call an obviously intoxicated person. So a person can be drunk, but in Florida is one of just a few states where there's no criminal law that he can be over-served," Snelling explained. "So the bartender doesn't have that incentive to not over-serve, and they know they're going to make more money."
However, some establishments have implemented their own responsible policies. Snelling points to the Hard Rock as an example of best practices.
"The Hard Rock, they're really very, very stringent about not serving obviously intoxicated people, and they train everyone at the Hard Rock about how to handle that, how to cut people off softly, offer them like a Coke and snacks, and there's ways to do it, but some of the bars and clubs, not so much," she said.
Snelling advocates for more widespread responsible beverage training and policy changes at the state level to address these gaps.
"I would like to see more responsible beverage training at all the bars and clubs. Because I think some of them are doing a good job, some of them, not so much. I mean, it's more of... it's their business, you know, they want to serve alcohol. The more, the better, honestly. They're going to make more money, maybe bigger tips, but we need to do more with that," she said.
While statistics show some improvement in DUI crashes through the combined efforts of education and law enforcement, new challenges are emerging. Law enforcement reports an increasing trend of marijuana-influenced driving alongside traditional alcohol impairment.
"One other thing is we wanted... we always are talking about alcohol, but there's the trend that the law enforcement's seeing is also drugs, mainly marijuana. So, they're seeing a lot more of the marijuana-influenced driving. And that can also lead to crashes," Snelling said.
This evolution in impaired driving patterns requires updated safety messaging.
"It's great, like, let's say you decide not to drink, but don't just switch to another drug, like, for example, marijuana or cocaine. So just try to have a great time tonight, but maybe, if possible, have fun without alcohol or drugs, but if you are doing any of that, please get a responsible driver or get a safe ride home," Snelling advised.
The ongoing fight
Despite decades of advocacy and some statistical improvements, the fight against impaired driving continues. For Unfried, every crash brings back the pain of that night 42 years ago when her sister called out her name with her final breath.
"Whenever you hear about those crashes, does it bring that night just hurling back into your heart? All the way back into my heart," she said. "And there's so many crashes that are happening that, you know, you just... it's hard to get through life and go on with it."
The work continues through MADD's ongoing programs, including a candlelight vigil scheduled for next Thursday for anyone affected by impaired driving crashes.
For all three, the message remains consistent: there are no acceptable excuses for impaired driving in an era of ride-sharing apps and other transportation alternatives.
"If you value your life, you'll stay home tonight, because it's very, very scary out there," Unfried said. "We have law enforcement that will be out there in force, but people don't take personal responsibility and make their arrangements before they go out, and then it's too late."
The tragedy is that responsible people often make safe choices, while those who need to hear the message most continue to put themselves and others at risk.
"The responsible person is usually the one who watches it and says, 'I'm not going, I'm not going. It's not worth it,'" Unfried observed. "Because you might do everything you want to do, you might take an Uber to go out, you might do all the right things, but the people that didn't do the right things, they're out there everywhere."
After 42 years of advocacy, Unfried's message remains urgent and personal: "It's very, very sad. It's very frustrating that after 42 years, it's not better, it's getting worse, because people refuse to take responsibility for themselves."
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