Lemonade Maker Debbie Allen
Debbie Allen is a LemonadeMaker. Like many other LemonadeMakers, she created a foundation called “Shelby’s Rules”, after her daughter died. She is working hard to educate teens of the dangers of alcohol poisoning, to prevent other families from losing their children to it. If the other girls with her had called for help, her death could have been avoided. They didn’t realize the seriousness of what was happening with Shelby, and thought she just needed to sleep it off.
Shelby Lyn Allen was a 17 year-old 11th grade student. On the first night of Christmas break in 2008, Shelby and her friends started drinking. Shelby became violently ill and was semi-conscious when her friends left her propped up over the toilet. When she was discovered the next morning, she could not be revived.
In the aftermath of this tragedy, Debbie began asking questions. Talking with other teens, she realized that most of them had no clue that drinking just a few too many swallows of an 80 proof alcohol, like vodka, can kill you. As unfair as this seems, if you are a girl, your risk is increased by variables such as fluctuating hormone levels and smallness of frame.
Debbie also realized that most adults have no clue about the dangers of alcohol poisoning. Everyone knows that excessive drinking can make you sick (praying to the porcelain god) or have you make a fool of yourself (dancing on the table). Maybe you will even suffer a nasty hangover. But letting a friend “sleep it off” can easily turn into them falling into a deadly coma or vomiting in their sleep, and choking to death.
Once alcohol poisoning has begun the only effective treatment is to get the poisoned person to a hospital emergency room, provide breathing assistance as needed and provide IV therapy (nutrients). Most importantly, this care must be provided immediately to be effective and because of the possibility of brain damage every minute counts. Alcohol poisoning causes the brain to shut down vital organ processes, including breathing. If your breathing stops, your heart stops, you die. By all accounts, if breathing is assisted by intubation (breathing tube) the body will rid itself of alcohol and you will survive.
Shelby’s untimely and ultimately preventable death has devastated Debbie’s family. Shelby made poor choices that night, but those choices should never have led to her death. It is the hard truth that despite our best efforts to protect them, in the end our teenagers safety, their very lives can come down to other young people knowing when and how to ask for help.
If you have teenagers, please get this film to help your teens understand the dangers of binge drinking. “The Unconcious Truth” is now available on DVD and at tyla.org. Contact TYLA at 800-204-222 ext. 1529 to request a copy. This is a film that highlights the dangers of teen binge drinking – perfect to incorporate into high school and community alcohol education programs!
Responsible
“It is not our duty to suffer over what will be or won’t be — to live with painful regret or guilt over what was or wasn’t. Our soul task is to be responsible for what is.” – Guy Finley
I think that at the end of the day, it is better to have tried to shoot for the moon, and land on a star, than it is to have never even tried. I think that regretting not doing something, is much harder to live with, because it doesn’t reveal a lesson. As least if you try to invent the light bulb, you learn not only 900 ways how not to create a light bulb, but along the way some other interesting things will be realized, learned and applied to other inventions.
What is currently going on in our lives is the direct result of decisions that we made, or avoided making. We are responsible for “what is”. But the most important thing to understand, is that every single moment, we can make a new decision to change what is, into something new. Isn’t it amazing that you get to decide who you are? If you don’t chase after your dreams, how will you ever know what life has the possibility to be?
When we live our life from the standpoint of guilt or regret, we have made ourselves prisoners of the past. I remember a quote (unknown source) that shows how ironic it is to make ourselves suffer the pains of regret. It said, “never regret anything because at one time is was exactly what you wanted.” Every second we spend in the past is a second that we can’t get back. It is a moment of passionate – abundant – radiant – joy that we miss out on living with today in this moment.
So avoid regrets by taking chances. Don’t be afraid to screw it up royally (why make a small mistake when you can make a catastrophe?). Don’t settle. Be an original, because the world doesn’t need another copy of someone else. Let your spirit soar. And most important of all make someone laugh! (it’s why I married my husband, no matter what is happening in life, he can make me laugh).