April 2018

Suicide is a serious public health issue causing immeasurable pain, suffering and loss to individuals, families and communities nationwide. Nearly 40,000 people in the United States take their own lives every year, a statistic that exceeds the death rate of homicide, automobile accidents and AIDS combined. The causes of suicide are complex, though most often are powerful combinations of mental illness and/or substance abuse.

Suicide prevention efforts seek to reduce factors that increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors while increasing factors that help strengthen, support and protect individuals from suicide. Two such factors are emotional wellness and addiction recovery.

Emotional wellness

Emotional wellness inspires self-care, relaxation, stress reduction, relational intimacy and development of inner strength. In response to negative feelings, emotional wellness allows acceptance of those feelings, understanding of their source and the ability to learn and grow from those experiences. Emotional health strongly influences physical health that also plays a key role in overall wellness.

Pursue emotional wellness by practicing the following strategies:

• Process occurrences with optimism.
• Purposefully smile.
• Show gratitude in order to strengthen relationships with family and friends.
• Concentrate on mindfulness through various forms of meditation.
• Accept your imperfection and the resulting mistakes as opportunities to learn.
• Seek or accept help and support from others when needed.

Signs of emotional turmoil and the need for help include:

• Withdrawing or isolating oneself from relationships.
• Acting anxious or agitated, or behaving recklessly.
• Sleeping either too little or too much.
• Increasing use of alcohol or drugs.
• Feeling hopeless or like a burden to others.
• Experiencing extreme mood swings.
• Fantasizing suicide.

If emotionally unwell and struggling against suicidal ideation, first understand that you are not alone. Feeling suicidal is not a symptom of character defect, but one of overwhelming pain. With treatment and support, however, this pain will pass, and suicide will have been a permanent and destructive ‘solution’ to a temporary problem. If you find yourself unable to consider solutions other than suicide, it is not that they don’t exist, but that you are currently blinded to them. Seek guidance from trusted counselors, friends or loved ones.

Addiction recovery

While depresion and other mood disorders are the leading risk factors for suicide, alcohol and drug abuse follow closely. In fact, research has shown that the strongest predictor of suicide is not psychiatric diagnosis, but alcoholism. People with substance abuse disorders are six times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

Substance abuse not only increases the likelihood that a person will take their own life, but can also provide the means for committing suicide. Roughly one in three people lost to suicide are under the influence of drugs, usually opiates such as oxycodone, heroin or alcohol. Depressants such as these can trigger symptoms of depression, increasing the threat of suicidal ideation, as well as lower inhibitions, enabling people to take risks that they ordinarily would not.

The most ideal setting for addiction recovery is inpatient treatment, which often yields greater success that outpatient treatment or various single solutions. One clear benefit is that inpatient addiction treatment involves the addict surrendering to thorough care for a length of time.

Other uniquely beneficial attributes of inpatient addiction treatment are isolation and protection from negative influences, around-the-clock support from teams of specialists who genuinely care and multi-layered approaches that include detoxification, return to normal functionality and acceptance of change.

There is hope for suicide prevention through the practices of emotional wellness and addiction recovery.

Guest post written by Melissa Howard who is the Head of Prevention Outreach for StopSuicide.info