KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- For families who've suffered injuries or loss at the hands of a drunk driver, MADD of Northeastern Tennessee comes together to, "help survivors survive."

Drunk driving claimed more than 300 lives in Tennessee alone last year. Saturday's annual candlelight vigil was meant to honor and remember those victims.

The holiday time is a difficult season for grieving families. Organizers say this event helps provide support to help survivors cope with their loss.

Madd says it can take mothers about five years before events start to feel normal again. It's been three years since Jenilyn Franklin and her husband, Brandon, were killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver.

But for Jenilyn's mother, it's a struggle day by day. "You just go minute at a minute, an hour at a time, a day at a time to go through it," says Darlene Addis of Kodak.

"It's devastated our lives. There's not a minute that goes by that they don't creep into my mind in one form or another," says Addis.

Jenilyn had just married Brandon seven weeks before the accident that claimed both their lives.

Three previous DUI convictions weren't enough to keep Larry Williamson off the road. Police say he was drunk when he crossed the center line in September of 2006, killing the newly-wed couple.

Addis' grief led Addis to join Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "We're just kind of a group where we know where it hurts," she says.

Now she fights for stricter sentences for offenders like Williamson. He took a plea deal that puts him in jail for 20 years. He has to serve at least 6 years.

"MADD is instrumental in trying to get things changed and that's why I like working with them," says Addis, in hopes that no other family will have to suffer like hers.

"Somewhere they're looking down upon us and helping us get through it," she says.