When Alcohol Poisoning Serves as a Wakeup Call for an Adolescent
Jeffrey was a high school freshman who usually seemed to be living on the edge. Jeffrey had a daring personality and regularly wanted to do what his older brothers were doing. The fundamental glitch with this was that all three of his brothers were at least 21 years old and were as a result able from a legal point of view to drive a car and to consume alcohol.
Jeffrey, nevertheless, had a rough time grasping the truth that as a fifteen-year-old individual he should not be drinking alcoholic beverages. In fact, however, Jeffrey generally drank with his guy friends after school, largely on the weekends.
One weekend, Jeffrey decided to drive around with some of his older friends. One of his buddies was old enough to purchase alcohol. After purchasing some beer, wine coolers, and wine, Jeffrey and all of his friends went to a public park and drank for something like three hours.
Jeffrey Experiences Alcohol Poisoning Symptoms
After drinking approximately ten glasses of wine, Jeffrey started to feel nauseous and then vomited. When he became unconscious on the basketball court, one of his cronies called 911 for immediate assistance. It was fortunate that the call for emergency help was made because when his pals went to the hospital to see Jeffrey, they found out that Jeffrey had been exhibiting alcohol poisoning symptoms. In short, Jeffrey had overdosed on alcohol.
When Your Friends Drink Abusively
Jeffrey had heard that drinking a great deal can result in an alcohol overdose but he never thought that this could ever happen to him. After all, some of his cronies time and again bragged that they could drink twenty or more bottles of beer in one day without feeling any significant difficulties.
Armed with this information, Jeffrey was quite flabbergasted to find out that he had overdosed on alcohol because he “only” had around ten drinks. When he explained this to the attending healthcare practitioner at the hospital, on the other hand, the physicain notified Jeffrey that drinking ten cans of beer over a two or three hour period of time could in fact be significantly more alcohol than can be metabolized by the body. The healthcare professional further verbalized how excessive alcohol can cause the brain to shut down an individual’s respiratory system and that when this transpires, an individual can expire.
The First Sign of Abusive Drinking
This was the first indication to Jeffrey that he was drinking in a risky manner and that there are repercussions for such actions. The physicain told Jeffrey that he was a fortunate person because he almost died from an alcohol overdose the previous night.
The physicain also spoke to Jeffrey’s parents and suggested that they get alcohol counseling for Jeffrey. His parents were elated that Jeffrey was safe and informed the physicain that they would get Jeffrey alcohol rehab.
While talking to his parents, Jeffrey told them that there must be a special reason why he did not pass away and that he felt grateful that he was still alive. He also notified his parents that the weirdest part about the entire drinking situation was that he had learned about alcohol poisoning the previous six week grading period in Mr. Franklin’s health class.
When Paying Attention in Class Can Change Your Life
At the time, what his health teacher, Mr. Franklin, was saying didn’t seem to make too much sense to Jeffrey. Since he almost died, in spite of this, he felt that he should have listened more intently in Mr. Franklin’s health class and applied what he had learned to his daily living.
Jeffrey told his parents that he couldn’t wait to go back to the classroom and make an apology to Mr. Franklin for not showing more attention to something that was as relevant as learning about alcohol abuse and how to stay away from an alcohol overdose.
His parents smiled at Jeffrey and said that they were thrilled with the way he was accepting responsibility for his dangerous drinking actions. All he had to do now was to let this near fatal experience influence his life in a productive way so that he would never again suffer from an alcohol overdose.