It only takes a split second and a bad decision for a good time to turn into a disaster that will alter lives forever.

Mark Sterner delivered that message to a full house Thursday night at the Chapel in his presentation, “DUI: A Powerful Lesson.”

He began by showing the audience a home video of him and his friends drinking and enjoying themselves during a spring break trip in 1994.

Just 15 minutes after he turned off the camera, three of Sterner’s friends were killed when he drove drunk and crashed their rental car into a tree.

Sterner later was convicted on three counts of DUI manslaughter, served two years in a maximum security Florida prison and is now serving 12 years probation.

“I was going to be the first person in my family to graduate from college,” he said. “Instead, I was the first person in my family to go to prison.”

Sterner said his real punishment is the guilt that haunts him every day.

“There’s an old saying that time heals all wounds. It’s not true,” he said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my friends.”

Sterner said he delivers the presentation because he “needed something to give back, something to make it better.”

He said he now has given the presentation to more than 750,000 people across the country.

A student organization, Advocating Safe Alternatives for Peers (ASAP), sponsored the event.

Grant Hawkins, a senior from Rome and president of ASAP, said the purpose of Thursday’s presentation was to make students aware that DUI is a serious problem.

“DUI is something that faces University students every day,” he said.

Hawkins said ASAP also will be sponsoring a “Safe Spring Break Week,” beginning March 11.

Members will be at the Tate Student Center Plaza from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 12 to talk to students about the organization and pass out “Safe Spring Break” packets.

The packets, which also were given to the first 100 students at Thursday’s presentation, include a condom, a toothbrush, sunscreen and Tylenol, Hawkins said.

For more information about ASAP, call adviser Carole Middlebrooks at 542-8690 or visit the Student Activities Web site at (www.uga.edu/stuact).