The month of April is Alcohol Awareness Month which includes underage and binge drinking awareness. One of our featured speakers on the Drive to Save Lives tour this month, Kathi Sullivan, shares her story in this featured blog.
As I sit in Wisconsin, 849 miles away from home, freezing in -1 degree weather, I am still warm as I am reflecting on this morning’s presentation to Peshtigo High School. Connection is a warm blanket for all of us.
As the students walked into the gymnasium, I greeted them when they passed by. “Hello, love your red hair, great eyes, love your moccasins, Good morning”, all along smiling and inviting them into my joyous energy. They pass by, wondering who I am? Why am I so cheerful?
They get situated, sitting in the uncomfortable wooden bleachers in the gymnasium. Normally they sit there, watching a basketball game or having a pep rally. Today, they are having to listen to a presentation about underage drinking and substances. Surely not what they want to listen to at 8:15 am!
As I’m introduced by the school, they now realize I’m the presenter of the day. They now see that this smiling happy woman in front of them, is the Mom of the beautiful blonde young lady in the framed picture in front of them that has passed away. How is that joy possible, they wonder?
Underage Drinking Awareness Speaker. How did I ever become that person? How did I ever get comfortable standing in front of hundreds of students/parents and sharing my family’s life? They say a moment in life can change a person’s life. My moment came on October 17, 2008, when I lost my only daughter Taylor to underage drinking her senior year in high school after a homecoming game. My former life stopped, and a new one was beginning to unfold right before my crying eyes.
Underage drinking changed my family dynamics forever. All I can tell you is that “The rite of passage” kids will be kids; its harmless fun is NOT true. I have learned more in the last 16 years while speaking nationally than I ever cared to know. Statistically there are about 4,000 deaths per year of young people under 21 from alcohol related deaths. Motor vehicle crashes involving an alcohol impaired driver, homicides, alcohol overdoses, falls, burns, drowning and suicide. My daughter became one of those statistics, after a series of underage drinking parties and an outside party in the woods. After three long days of searching, she was found, drowned in only two feet of water. All because of the alcohol in her system.
Those statistics mean nothing to the students I see in front of me as I share my Taylor’s story. If I put those numbers on a PowerPoint presentation in front of the young people in front of me, they would never feel those deaths or think it would ever happen to them. As I share my Tay’s message of what happened to her on that fateful Homecoming weekend, they begin to feel her, to really see her in the pictures on the big screen behind me. They begin to see themselves and their friends. They begin to see their own Mom/Dad/Guardian standing in front of them talking. As they look at pictures of Taylor with her brothers, they see their own siblings in their mind. As I stand in front of them, looking into their eyes, I see them change as the story unfolds. I see them hug their friends a little tighter, I see tears in some of their eyes, I see them engaging…leaning forward, needing to know more. I see them acknowledging their own foolish choices that they may have made in the past and my hope is they change some of them in the future.
We all learn from stories. I wish I never had to tell my family’s, but I am blessed to be sitting in Wisconsin today, freezing my butt off, waiting to share with the parents this evening. Once again, my Tay will introduce me to more people, connecting hearts, like she has been doing for the last 16 years. Although I may never get used to being called an Underage Drinking Awareness Speaker and an advocate for spreading awareness, I will always be Taylor’s Mom. I will always be willing to share Taylor’s Message in hopes of helping others make better choices for themselves and their families! We are all one decision away from a different life. Choose wisely.