After a DUI Felony Conviction

Quit drinking and endangering others lives would be the obvious first step. Then move on to interviewing for positions.

You have poor impulse control.

You mentioned it was your first and only felony a couple of times, like that is something to be proud of. Truth is it was your fourth time GETTING CAUGHT driving while impaired. Obviously the first three times the punishment wasn't strong enough to break your habit of making bad choices. I'm concerned that you have now decided to stop drinking all together and that your using the drinking as a scapegoat for your selfishness, the problem with this attitude is the cycle of addiction sets up the situation that when you relapse eventually, as most people do, chances are you will get behind the wheel again.

Now that I'm done ranting...It is definitely not over for you, your felony will have an affect on your life but that will be the case regardless of your career choice. You are still young enough to build a great career and succeed at life. I would start by looking into online courses such as Coursera or maybe one of the places listed on this site: https://acethinker.com/web-videos/sites-like-coursera.html

Unfortunately a felony conviction does make it difficult to receive government financial aid and grants but it is still possible to get help through private means. I would also suggest volenteering, there is no easier way to gain practical experience than this and it will go a long way towards getting your felony expunged once enough time has passed. Good luck, it's not going to be as easy as giving up but nothing worth doing is.

This is a wake up call. You should investigate whether your felony can be expunged in X years. There is a fair chance it can.

Either way, your good life is all still possible.

The single most important thing you can do is get your priorities in order. Not doing that, say valuing having fun over living a reasonable life, is why you are here now.

The world will, for realz, shut a LOT of doors for you should you continue to treat it as you have done yourself.

Have some self respect. Look hard at that guy in the mirror and begin the process of getting this right.

And I do not intend or want you to feel bad. You may, and you have to work through all that.

No, this is about revisiting your basic life choices. Question them. Begin a self dialog every day. The world you live in begins with that guy in the mirror. Have a talk. A real talk.

Example: holding a door open

This is trivial, but instructive. I did all this myself in my 20's. Was sucked into bad religion, coming out of poverty growing up, angry, jaded, the works. Bad days.

I had a long drive to and from work. I would have that talk during that drive. One little thing questioned each day.

How can I play it differently? Why do I want to play it differently?

You can too.

So, holding a door. Being polite. Nice.

At first, I did it to just comply with good norms. Not good enough. On a bad day, I would revert, and return to shitty.

It was the why that mattered more than the how, or what of things.

One day, it struck me. We all get tired, we all get old, we all like niceness, consideration.

What if it were me?

Boom! You hold the door to amplify good, set norms, and contribute to the net happiness, the better in the world while you can. The doing of that helps with when it is your time.

And you do it because it feels good. We live in harsh times in many ways. Sure, there is amazing tech, and lots of awesome experiences, but there is hate, poverty, war, crime too.

I ended up resolving this to making damn sure I was not contributing to the bad, and that what good I am about can spread, touch others and make it better.

The important thing here is that you find what it takes to change and that you do it for yourself, for your reasons, on your terms.

Brutal honesty with yourself is the way. No fear, no shame, no blame.

Drop this first and only felony shit. That is a bunch of spin and it reeks of someone not taking good care of themselves.

Truth is, if you do not own who you are, this may be the first of other bad things. And for each one, you can do what you are doing; namely, pity party, excuse it away

, or

you can take the wake up call as the opportunity it really is!

Here is the beauty of what I advise:

When you get there, you will look back, laugh at who you were and you will be ultra secure in that great guy you will have become.

That guy is someone people will value. That guy has his priorities in order. That guy can do what I am doing right now too.

That guy can talk about what happened in past terms and with the weight of no longer being that felonious, lost soul.

You need nothing here but quality time with yourself, and support from anyone who knows you and sees you getting after better.

Now, this is hard. I will not sugar coat it:

Right now, evaluate everyone in your life. Who is who?

Winners?

Losers?

Bad influence?

Good influence?

Take your goals, and your priorities, sort them such as you can right now. This will not be perfect. No worries. We all are a work in progress. Know that.

Filter those people into:

Good influence

Role models

Value you for you and will augment your efforts to become, grow, succeed.

The rest?

Phase them out. No need for aggression, no need to tell them anything. Just move toward better, avoid the old, the traps, the bad.

And seek new friends, a lover, perhaps. Make sure they are those people who model better, who you look up to.

Even better than you are.

Watch what they do and say. Ask them questions sometimes...

You can still have success in the tech field for sure... but now you're going to have to work extra hard for it unfortunately. The consequence of your felony is such that you need to stand out even more from any potential competition, more so than if you had a clean record. But hey, the only direction you can go now is up.