For the past twenty-six years Jenny has been a registered nurse at a small Catholic hospital. Not only this, but she has also been teaching Sunday school at the local Anglican Church. In spite of the fact that she lived in a medium size country community where it seemed like everybody knew everyone’s business, very little was known about Jenny. Without a doubt virtually everyone in town knew that she had worked many years as a nurse practitioner and that she taught Sunday school for as long as she lived in their small community. Besides that, then again, it almost seemed as if Jenny was simply a visitor in their community.
You can visualize the ballyhoo that happened when it was learned that one Sunday morning Jenny had passed out due to drinking and driving. Indeed, the article in the hometown daily paper mentioned that Jenny not only became unconscious, but that she also was arrested for driving while intoxicated due to the fact that her blood alcohol content was considerably higher than the legal limit for drunk driving. This is obviously one of the alcohol effects on the body that no Sunday school teacher wants to have made public to the whole town. But this is precisely what took place, much to the dismay of Jenny.
Jenny Gets Very Distraught About Her DUI
Obviously, Jenny was extremely dismayed about her arrest for driving while intoxicated. Not only should she have known better about drinking and driving because of her nursing job, but she also should have held herself accountable to a more lofty standard because of the straightforward fact that she taught Sunday school.
After her DWI arrest, Jenny thought about moving out of town so that she would not have to feel upset about her arrest and also so she wouldn’t have to defend her actions for the five hundred thousandth time to the people in town. After meeting with her pastor, nevertheless, she decided that she would get alcohol rehab at a local rehab facility. She did this for two simple reasons. First, it was relatively convenient for her to drive to a local counseling center. And second, she frankly wanted the word to get dispersed among all the residents in town that she was truly dealing with her hazardous and excessive drinking.
Jenny Goes Through Detox and Gets a Complete Physical Exam
After Jenny went through detoxification, she was completely examined by a healthcare professional at the alcohol rehab hospital. She then underwent a few lab tests where it was established that she was not alcohol dependent but instead was engaging in hazardous and abusive drinking. In a word Jenny was engaging in long term alcohol abuse.
Jenny was provided with the choice of getting admitted as an in-patient or getting alcohol treatment as an outpatient. Jenny, then again, felt that she could still work as a registered nurse and continue with her Sunday school teaching position if she were to be registered as an out-patient and this is specifically what she did.
According to her treatment action plan, Jenny went to three rehabilitation sessions every week, she learned more than she ever wanted to know about alcohol info, she worked on her take home “projects,” and she learned how to involve herself doing things in life that did not involve alcohol.
After seventeen weeks, Jenny felt like her careless and hazardous drinking was under control and so she got discharged from the rehab center under the condition that she would return for follow up treatment once every two months for the next eleven months. Jenny signed an agreement form and followed through on her “word.”
Jenny Decides to Abstain From All Drinking Situations and Finds Out That Her Positive Attitude About Herself Increases
After she completed her counseling Jenny reasoned that she would be able to drink more responsibly than before. After reflecting on things more extensively, nonetheless, she arrived at a decision that she would absolutely stay away from any and all drinking situations.
When Jenny arrived at this determination, she discovered that her positive attitude about herself became more bolstered the more she was in command of her life. And as her positive attitude about herself grew, it appeared that she became more extroverted and began attending more local events such as local high school basketball and football games, music festivals, carnivals, Christmas tree lighting ceremonies, flower festivals, rib roasts, and strawberry festivals.
Jenny Addresses Her Abusive and Hazardous Drinking, Makes up Her Mind To Do Something Constructive About It, and Rediscovers Her Faith
As the years passed, the people in the town demonstrated more fondness for Jenny because she was involving herself with them more regularly and also because she faced her unhealthy drinking and decided to do something beneficial about it. It may have been her imagination, but it also seemed as if her Sunday school pupils demonstrated more respect and appreciation for her.
Jenny is a living illustration of an individual who had a precarious predicament and who did something affirmative about it. She is also someone who found out that her religious faith is not only something that is intrinsic, but that it is also something that affects the way in which a person works together with other individuals.