suhre@trwrba.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) (02/26/86)
I had some e-mail correspondence with someone about suicide and
use (abuse) of drugs and/or alcohol.
The open question was something like this: Does everyone have some
slight tendency toward suicide, and drugs or booze aggravates the
tendency? Or is this tendency generated by drugs or booze?
I didn't have any proof one way or the other, nor could I think of
any controlled experiments to establish what the facts were. What I
had was "anecdotal evidence". That is, I have heard lots of sober
alcoholics describe how they were suicidal in their drinking days,
and they are not suicidal now that they are sober. Draw your own
conclusions.
Maurice
{decvax,sdcrdcf,ihnp4,ucbvax}!trwrb!suhrewoods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (03/03/86)
> The open question was something like this: Does everyone have some > slight tendency toward suicide, and drugs or booze aggravates the > tendency? Or is this tendency generated by drugs or booze? This depends strongly on who you ask. If the person you ask has negative views on drugs and alcohol, they will typically blame all the world's evils on them. I have been in the position of being a drug abuser. To this day I am a cocaholic (chronic cocaine abuser), but I no longer take the drug. I have also had desires to commit suicide. This is, of course, long in the past, and I am strongly of the belief that drugs and booze do not CAUSE suicide, but rather similar combinations of world beliefs and life circumstances can lead both to drug abuse and suicidal behavior. I have no doubt that there is a correlation, but I don't think it is a cause-and-effect relationship. I think that suicide and drug abuse are just different forms of escape from a reality that one perceives as unpleasant. The problem is not what escape the person wishes to employ, but rather why does he feel that escape is necessary? The answer, usually, is that the person has developed a set of beliefs about how the world *should* be, and sees the current reality negatively in light of that. The trick to getting out of suicidal depression, then, is to first become aware of making this comparison between reality and some ideal world that exists only in the imagination, and secondly to stop comparing. Suicidal people (including myself) that I have known tend to want the world to be like their ideal, and refuse to accept the fact that it never can be. They won't even LOOK at the good and bad aspects of reality, or more importantly, what they could do within the context of the real world to make it better for themselves, because they are so stuck on this imaginary world they have created. They set impossible goals for themselves (to make the world like their imaginary one) so that they must fail. The key to aiding a suicidal person, in my view, is to create an awareness in them of the comparison between worlds, one real and one imaginary, that they are making, and that it is in their power to stop making the comparison, usually much easier said than done. --Greg DISCLAIMER: These represent only my personal opinions based on my own personal experience with myself and acquaintances. My experience in psychology is limited to a B.A. degree and I am not a professional in the field. -- {ucbvax!hplabs | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!seismo} !hao!woods CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA "If the game is lost, we're all the same; No one left to place or take the blame"