I'm asking for a gift, in memory of her please between now and December 20th the day she died, share this link with as many people as you can. In the almost two years since Shelby's death, my sister Debbie and her husband Steve have worked tirelessly to get the word out about Alcohol Poisoning but all their work is not enough if even one more teen dies. Please, please, Dig Life by saving a life...
MYTHS ABOUT BINGE DRINKING AND DRINKING GAMES
"Let them sleep it off" -
Sadly those are the last words that many friends and parents say about an alcohol poisoning victim. If a person has alcohol poisoning, nothing can save them but a trip to the hospital. And here's the tricky part, there's no way to tell if it is truly alcohol poisoning unless you get them help. The very good news is that almost everyone, no matter how far they are gone can recover if they get help. The warning signs are
•vomiting •slurred speech •non-responsiveness •snoring, when passed out •blue-ish tinge to their skin
Just one of these can be a sign of alcohol poisoning don't take a chance CALL 911
"Now that they've puked they've got it out of their system"
Not true. You can vomit for hours (Shelby did) and still die from alcohol poisoning. Alcohol passes quickly from your stomach to your large intestine where your body begins to process it.
"I ate a super burrito before I started doing shots to soak up the alcohol, I'll be fine"
Not true. Alcohol depresses your gag reflex. That means that when you vomit you are twice as likely to choke to death. Not only that but you increase your chances of vomiting food particles into your lungs. If this occurs you can quickly die from a massive bacterial infection, this can happen in a matter of hours while someone is "sleeping it off."
"Drinking your age in shots is awesome"
Not true. Every year people die of attempting to down 21 shots on their 21st birthday. Now younger and younger kids are playing the game, 12 shots on your 12th is not unheard of and it can be fatal.
"I have friends who get wasted all they time and none of them have died"
Thank God. You are very lucky and so are they. The truth is there is no way to predict if someone will die from binge drinking or drinking games. And it seems that girls are more susceptible than boys, depending on where you are in you menstrual cycle you many be more prone to alcohol poisoning. That means that a girl could drink one week and be fine and drink the same amount the next week and die. Women also have, on average, more body fat and alcohol remains in body fat longer. But thin people can die also, Shelby was 5'6" and weighed 110 pounds.
"So if I'm a guy I'm okay?"
Nope more guys than girls die of alcohol poisoning.
"Only kids die of alcohol poisoning"
Not true. Shelby's friend Audrey lost both Shelby and her mother to alcohol poisoning within the same year.
"I'm young that means my liver works better, stronger, faster than an adult's"
Not true. The most current research shows that young livers (21 and under) don't process alcohol "better" than adult livers because they are still growing.
"My kid is smart, good, on the Varsity Team, volunteers, got accepted into Stanford, they could never die of alcohol poisoning that's someone else's problem."
Think again, a quick glance down the list of the teens who have died in the last few years shows all of their accomplishments, honor students, volunteers, athletes, good kids. Often times their friends say these are exactly the kids that would have gone for help, the kids that would have stepped up to the plate and taken responsibility to save a life by calling 911. But when they are passed out or have lost their ability to reason who helps them?
"How many ounces in a "Tall" Starbucks? Answer 12 Can 12 ounces of alcohol kill me? Answer : Absolut-ely"
When was the last time you ordered a Tall anything at Starbucks? Almost all of our liquid intake comes in super-size. A small bottle of water still holds 16 ounces, a medium soft drink at almost any theatre is 24 ounces, a can of Coke 12 ounces, an average kitchen tumbler, 16 ounces. All of this is to say, we really don't have any idea of relative size when it come to alcohol. One beer=1 ounce of alcohol. One small glass of wine= 1 ounce of alcohol. One ounce of alcohol an hour is about all a normal healthy adult liver can process, the rest turns into ethanol AKA rat poison. As my sister Debbie says in her presentations, if you saw a friend drink an ounce of rat poison and then watched them vomit, you'd get help right? Of course you would, you wouldn't even think about it. So think about it, vomiting from excessive drinking is exactly the same.
One last thing...YOUR WINGS TO FLY
According to the latest research the average human brain may not fully mature until a person reaches the age of 30... if they are lucky enough to reach 30. What does that mean? It means that your pre-frontal lobes are the last part of your brain to mature. They wrap around the front part of your brain like wings. This is the part of your brain that you use to reason, "if I do this, then that will happen." That's why you often hear an adult saying to a child, "Didn't you think?" And often times they didn't because their brain had not yet caught up to their body. This is why in all the history of the world adults have disciplined children when they do something dangerous, not to be mean but to reenforce the point that unwittingly their actions could kill them. Ironically even a small amount of alcohol impairs your growing ability to reason, one shot says to your brain, hey 10 shots won't kill you... when of course they will.
The bottom line is we want you to grow up, to make your mistakes but to live to learn from them, to earn your wings to fly. To live and love and laugh and grow and grow and grow.
Please Dig Life, and as a special gift to Shelby on her 19th birthday that never was, pass this long. http://www.shelbysrules.com
