When Alcohol Poisoning Serves as a Wakeup Call for a Teenager

Jeffrey was a high school freshman who commonly seemed to be living on the edge. Jeffrey had an adventurous personality and usually wanted to do what his older brothers were doing. The central glitch with this was that all three of his brothers were at least 21 years old and were as a result legally able to operate a car or truck and to drink alcohol.

Jeffrey, conversely, had a rough time understanding that as a fifteen-year-old teen he should not be drinking. In fact, conversely, Jeffrey regularly 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 cronies was old enough to purchase alcohol. After buying some wine coolers, beer, and wine, Jeffrey and his buddies went to a recreational area and drank for roughly two hours.

Jeffrey Experiences Alcohol Poisoning Symptoms

After drinking around ten bottles of beer, Jeffrey started to feel woozy and then vomited. When he lost consciousness on the soccer field, one of his friends called 911 for immediate medical assistance. It was fortunate that the call for medical assistance was made because when his buddies went to the hospital to see Jeffrey, they found out that Jeffrey had been suffering from alcohol poisoning symptoms. To be more specific, Jeffrey had experienced an alcohol overdose.

When Your Buddies Drink Too Much

Jeffrey had learned that drinking in a hazardous manner can result in an alcohol overdose but he never thought that this would affect him. After all, some of his buddies over and over again claimed that they could drink twenty four or more cans of beer in a few hours without suffering from any significant difficulties.

Armed with this information, Jeffrey was frankly amazed to gather that he had overdosed on alcohol because he “only” had more or less ten alcoholic beverages. When he told this to the attending doctor at the hospital, then again, the healthcare practitioner notified Jeffrey that drinking ten wine coolers over a two or three hour time frame could surely be quite a bit more alcohol than can be metabolized by the body. The healthcare practitioner further emphasized how significant amounts of alcohol can cause the brain to shut down a person’s breathing and that when this occurs, a person can expire.

The First Warning of Abusive Drinking

This was the first forewarning to Jeffrey that he was drinking in a harmful fashion and that there is a price tag for such behavior. The physicain told Jeffrey that he was a lucky person because he almost lost his life from an alcohol overdose the night before.

The healthcare professional also spoke to Jeffrey’s parents and suggested that they get alcohol treatment for Jeffrey. His parents were overjoyed that Jeffrey was all right and told the doctor that they would get Jeffrey alcohol therapy.

While chatting with his parents, Jeffrey informed them that there must be a special reason why he did not die and that he felt thankful that he was still alive. He also told his parents that the most ironic part about the entire drinking situation was that he had learned about alcohol poisoning the previous six week grading period in health class at school.

When Paying Attention in Class Can Make a Difference

At the time, what his health instructor, 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 life.

Jeffrey notified his parents that he couldn’t wait to go back to the classroom and make an apology to Mr. Franklin for not paying more attention to a subject that was as pertinent as learning about alcohol abuse and how to avoid an alcohol overdose.

His parents smiled at Jeffrey and said that they were thrilled with the way he was taking responsibility for his negative drinking activities. All he had to do now was to let this near fatal experience affect his life in a positive manner so that he would never again experience a case of alcohol poisoning.