Meet AAIM, a lesser-known, but vigilant foe of drunken driving

They almost revel in their under-known status.

They're a group involved in a relentless crusade against drunken drivers. And they provide empathy and support for the victims of drunken drivers.

One of its founders, Pat Larson, tells the story of how a judge wanted to teach a drunken driver a meaningful lesson, so he ordered the offender, as part of his sentence, to fork over $1,000 to Larson's group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Not again, Larson thought.

Larson's group is the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. Perhaps not nearly as celebrated and not a national organization like MADD, Schaumburg-based AAIM is the epitome of a grassroots group, doing the hard work in the trenches. Its members raise money for the families of drunken-driving victims, who in addition to the emotional havoc placed on them, also suffer some dire financial consequences.

AAIM also sends its volunteers to court, to lend support to the families touched by drunken driving. The group has been instrumental in getting legislation passed that has toughened drinking and driving laws. One of AAIM's early battles, for instance, was pushing for Wisconsin to raise its legal drinking age after the "blood border" between Wisconsin and Illinois was well-documented by the scores of teens, too young to legally drink in Illinois, driving to Wisconsin, getting hammered and dying in scores of crashes on their way home.

AAIM also marked its 25th anniversary a couple weeks ago with its annual fundraiser in Itasca.

It's kind of a bittersweet event, with a lot of emotional ups and downs. Many of the people involved with AAIM, you can tell, have become good friends, but under the most tragic of circumstances.

I attended AAIM's event because the Daily Herald was honored with the group's first-ever media award, principally because we've written a fair number of stories about drinking and driving and its consequences. Until that day, I had never met Pat Larson or AAIM's executive director, Charlene Chapman, but I felt like I've come to know them well because they're often quoted in our stories, many of which have been written by Christy Gutowski, our legal affairs reporter.

Looking around the room that day, Christy remarked that she knew a lot of the people in attendance. "I've told their stories," she said. Such as the ones of:

• Jenni, Allison and Jen, the three Waubonsie Valley High School students killed by a drunken driver speeding through a red light in Aurora. That crash, which I remember as if it were yesterday, is now more than 10 years old. Jenni's parents, Shelly and Pam Anderson, graciously allowed one of our photographers to take their picture as they visited Jenni's grave on the 10th anniversary of her death. I hope those photos serve as a poignant reminder of the pain that never goes away. The teens' tragic death resulted in legislation that doubled the penalties for impaired motorists who kill more than one person in a crash.

• Candace Wesolowski, a 19-year-old pedestrian killed in 1999 in Downers Grove by two separate drunken motorists who then fled. "Candace's Law" similarly invokes harsher penalties for such hit-and-run motorists. Her mother, Lorraine, is still a victim advocate for AAIM.

AAIM also tells the stories of the Waubonsie teens and Candace -- and dozens more -- in its 196-page booklet marking the 25th anniversary. Equally sobering are the first-person accounts from convicted drunken drivers who speak at AAIM's victim impact panels that other drunken motorists have been ordered by a judge to attend. "I didn't think my drinking and driving would affect anyone else," says Mike, whose friend was killed when an impaired Mike rolled his convertible into a ditch. "In actuality, it affected hundreds of people. Everyone else affected by this is an innocent bystander, and that's what weighs on me the most."