A recovering alcoholic says she knew she wasn’t drunk when she collided with a parked vehicle in late 2015. Sober for most of a decade, her beverage of choice had become orange juice, which she imbibed with gusto during late nights at the office.

The Midwestern attorney -- who asked to be called Sara to protect her career -- sometimes would skip a meal as she consumed up to a gallon of juice a day. And for about a year before the accident, she recalls feeling odd and that something was medically wrong.

When Sara blew just over .10 on a breathalyzer, slightly above the legal blood-alcohol limit in her state, she was arrested for drunk driving, a charge she had faced before.

The charge was quietly reduced last year after Sara was diagnosed as a likely sufferer of auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which digestive tracts loaded with yeast ferment high-carbohydrate foods such as bread and sugary foods like fruit into alcohol.

The abandonment of the drunk driving case against Sara appears to be one of the first actions of the sort in response to evidence of the disorder, which many people don’t know they have until they are arrested or fired from a job.

But as awareness and acceptance grows, some of the 25 patients diagnosed since 2013 by Dr. Anup Kanodia, an Ohio specialist and leading researcher of the disorder, have had no legal issues.

Among Kanodia's patients is a New Jersey teen who suffered frequent afternoon bouts of tipsiness, drunkenness or at times catatonic stupor, followed by classic hangover symptoms such as gaps in memory.

“There were people who thought I was making it up for attention,” recalls the girl’s mother, who asked to be called Anne and her daughter Jessica to protect the 15-year-old from negative attention.

After three years of visits to neurologists and epilepsy doctors, Anne happened upon a TV show that mentioned the disorder. It was an "aha" moment.

Jessica, who had been diagnosed with confusional migraines, tested positive for alcohol in a breath test at a doctor's office. Anne says she doesn’t even keep alcohol in her house and she took her daughter to Ohio, where the suspected diagnosis was confirmed.

Like Sara, Jessica has been largely free of symptoms since she switched to a diet consisting primarily of meat and vegetables.

Anne, a professional who holds a master's degree in a scientific field, says her daughter has started work on a book and is concerned other children may be suffering. She has had one backslide in the past 18 months after reintroduction of grain and fruit to her diet, with yeast later found to remain in urine, but otherwise has been alright.

“She’s very outspoken about it, she says, ‘I want to be on Ellen DeGeneres, I will have my name out there the day I turn 18!’” Anne says of her daughter, who now is a high school sophomore who earns good grades, is on the volleyball team, serves in the student government and teaches Sunday school. She openly discusses the condition with friends.

Sara, meanwhile, accepted a plea deal in July featuring a brief period of probation for reckless driving. The deal was not publicized at the time.

Online court records confirm Sara’s chronology, and her defense attorney and Dr. Kanodia corroborated her description of events. The county prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

Sara estimates she spent $25,000 fighting the drunk driving charge, with expenses including attorney fees and a privately commissioned polygraph test. She says she chose to take a deal rather than go to trial because a conviction could have been career-ending.

"As soon as I stopped the orange juice I was fine," Sara says, though she sticks to a diet with additional prohibitions. Although accepted by authorities, she says in general "I don't even tell anyone [about the disorder] because you can almost see them rolling their eyes."

Not everyone has been able to overcome life-impeding challenges associated with the syndrome. A northern California woman who asked to be called Angelique, citing litigation with a former employer, has struggled with both her new diet and to get approved for a liver transplant.

Angelique says she “blew a number” during one test for a transplant approval and fears a repeat could result in her blacklisting. Over the recent Christmas holiday, she admits to veering off her diet, drawn to delicious bread and potato dishes -- leading to two days of vomiting and hospitalization.

A well-spoken, college-educated single woman in her 40s, Angelique has dogs and a close relationship with her mother. She traces her first auto-brewery symptoms to use of a medicine to treat psoriasis, a condition that caused unsightly skin issues on her face. The medication can interact negatively with alcohol, but Angelique says she didn’t understand the potential consequences. She developed cirrhosis and then liver cancer.

An attorney for Angelique says an agreement has been reached to amicably resolve her employment lawsuit. The diagnosis emerged during the litigation in search of an explanation for her illness.

Angelique says she understands why people would be skeptical of the diagnosis and that she even understands why she would be refused a liver transplant. “As my mother says, it’s like telling people you saw Bigfoot, who’s going to believe you?” she says.

“All I hope for now is that the cancer doesn't metastasize,” says Angelique, who laughs often and says she's grateful to have lived at all. She says she's going to hold off seeking to join the transplant list until she's certain she can test free of alcohol.

Angelique says she self-administers a breathalyzer before driving, an approach also suggested to Jessica for when she reaches legal driving age.

“You can’t say to a police officer, 'I have auto brewery disease and it’s not a big deal.' Why would they believe that? Nobody believes that. So even when it’s .01 I won’t drive,” Angelique says.

“A friend once said, ‘So you wasted all that money in college?’" she adds. "I was like ‘no!’ I don’t feel it. ... everyone has a glass of wine and can feel that, but I can't feel it."

Dr. Kanodia says he believes only the tip of the iceberg has emerged for patient diagnoses. He often observes patients over a period of time to see if alcohol production can be triggered. Other tests are performed, including stool sample analysis for yeast.

The overabundance of yeast is believed to occur in some cases from overuse of antibiotics, but Kanodia says the type of yeast varies in patients and that various potential explanations have emerged, including stress, the absence of good colon bacteria and lack of sleep. Jessica's existing diagnosis of Celiac disease, he says, may be a factor.

"There is a significant awareness of this now," Kanodia says, with obvious internet search terms now turning up results for people who describe their symptoms. "For some people, the testing does not come back positive," he adds. "Or they have extensive yeast overgrowth but not to the point of auto-brewery syndrome."

In some cases when Kanodia cannot trigger alcohol production, he still concludes auto-brewery is likely the diagnosis. Sara, for example, says her body was not triggered to produce alcohol at Kanodia's office.

Among those diagnosed by Kanodia include a doctor's child and a college professor. Another expert on the disorder, Panola College Dean of Nursing Barbara Cordell, has helped expand understanding with research on the disorder.

Kanodia does concede solid evidence is necessary to prevent the disorder from becoming an excuse for criminal behavior.

"DUIs are so common in this country that [experts have to] separate people who truly need help from people who are going to try to do some trickery for the court system," he says. "That's why we do all this testing."

Indeed, defense attorney Joseph Marusak says he was contacted by lawyers from at least a half-dozen states seeking advice after he convinced a judge in December 2015 to drop a drunk driving case against a client arrested for weaving with a near-fatal blood alcohol content after drinking three cocktails.

The western New York defendant, 35 at the time, remains a school teacher, Marusak says, and last he heard she had the condition under control.