The second in an occasional series on the West Warwick Citizen’s Police Academy.

WEST WARWICK — When you’re sober, watching someone get drunk is probably the worst feeling in the world.

You want to help the guy, or stop him, or join him, but you know it’s probably best for everyone involved if you just mind your business. That’s kind of hard to do when a guy is knocking back Budweisers in the front of the Citizen’s Police Academy class you’re taking.

In one class, we learned about what it means to drive under the influence and about police traffic stops of impaired drivers. To help us understand how the equipment works and to see the toll alcohol takes on your body, the presenter had one of his coworkers start happy hour at 5:30 p.m. and promised to drive him home safely after he served as our guinea pig.

From what I could tell, he obliged happily. Watching someone get drunk is kind of like watching the guy who’s had a few too many when he realizes he’s had a few too many and hurls all over his shoes.

There was no vomit involved, but that train wreck? Yeah, it was like that.

I walked in late so the guy was already sitting down sipping what I thought was coffee out of a Dunkin Donuts cup. About 20 minutes into class, when he started giggling, squirming in his seat, saying “pick me” when the instructor asked a question, I knew he wasn’t drinking English Roast.

It was really hard to take your eyes off the guy. As he stumbled to the bathroom, you almost wanted to reach out and guide him to the door because he almost crashed into the wall. By 7 p.m., he was plastered. So much so, that his friend had to escort him to the bathroom. The friend definitely kept the guy upright in the few feet he had to walk to the toilet.

“Is he kidding?” one of the students said. No one could be that drunk from a few beers, we agreed.

An officer looked into the cooler to see how much beer the volunteer had drunk. Five empty 16-ounce cans of Budweiser stared back at him.

In a moment, the class went from laughing at the drunken guy to reaching the sobering truth: this guy was really drunk.

So we watched him a little more closely. Stared as he got a little close to one of the female students. Laughed as he waved the instructor down just to say, ‘Hi.’ Gasped when he almost fell out of his chair.

We walked outside into the drizzle to watch a field sobriety test. The test includes a battery of assessments from the familiar — walking a straight line or following a pen with your eyes — to the subtle — noticing whether the subject needs to lean against the car to keep his balance or uses the inside of the door and the side view mirror to get out of the car.

As Sgt. Ernest Lavigne administered the test, the instructor gave a play-by-play of his actions. The laws about driving under the influence are tricky. If an officer doesn’t follow the precise letter of the law, from the amount of time he administers a test to the number of times he reads you your rights, the entire case can be thrown out. That’s the hard part, especially since the office probably spent three to eight hours preparing the report. But it happens.

When we got back into the classroom, the drunken guy began to sober up. But I still kept my purse on the side farthest away from him. I didn’t want any residual splatter.

He sat quietly for the most part, springing to life when the instructor told the class it was now time for the guy to take the chemical breath test. They hooked up the machine. He took a deep breath and blew.

“.176,” Sgt. Lavigne yelled out his guess of the guys’ blood alcohol level, before covering the results. The class followed suit.

“.156.”

“.149.”

“.172.”

The machine’s reading? 0.131 percent — nearly 1½ the legal limit in Rhode Island. We looked at the machine in disbelief. The officers had told us not 30 minutes ago about readings from stops where the subject measured well into the .300 range. If this guy was this out of it at only .131, those other people were walking flasks.

tbuford@projo.com