The Right Stuff. Tom Wolfe named the phenomenon when describing how the nation's best test pilots follow a curious training regimen. Rather than eat right and sleep properly, the fighter jocks stay up all night drinking and rat-racing down desert highways in their sportscars.

The next morning on the flight line, these guardian angels suck in liters of pure oxygen, trying desperately to burn the alcohol out of their system before take-off time. Sure, you might die, but you're living life the way it's got to be lived.

But my friend could have taken someone with him. What if on that night several years ago, he had wrecked the car of the sober driver he collided with and not the other way around.

He'll never admit that it's possible or really even worth thinking about. Going out and drinking and driving are part of his very spirit.

No stigmatization will get him off the bottle or out of the driver's seat. They are for him, and for a sizable portion of our society, the symbols of a way of life. In our safety-conscious society, he's got to dice with death to find redemption.

No giggling grocery clerk would stop him. He tells the story of his accidents and mishaps with a certain pride.

So take him off the road, but don't indulge his vanity with a scarlet letter.