Question by needful thing: Do you know any people who have committed suicide while being in Alcoholics Anonymous.?
Why do you think they died?

Best answer:

Answer by raysny
I work in mental health and have talked to some people that have tried and failed. Here’s what I’ve heard:

1) They were convinced by other AA members that if they took psychiatric medications, they weren’t “really sober”. They stopped taking their medications and were overwhelmed by their mental health disorders.

2) They were shunned by other AA members when their psychiatric disorders became known, either through self-disclosure or when they became symptomatic.

3) Many use alcohol to self-medicate. If they were using alcohol to mask the symptoms of depression for example, these feelings come back intensified; this is known as the rebound effect.

4) They were taught that AA was their last chance, that if they failed in AA, they had no other options for not drinking, and death was preferable to going back to drinking.

5) For those that suffer from depression and/or low self-esteem, “ego-deflation” is the last thing they need. Bill Wilson believed that all alcoholics were the same and all needed humility. Some in AA do not understand the difference between humility and humiliation and treat newcomers terribly.

6) They have relapsed or are about to and cannot handle the shame, losing all their clean time, starting over at day 1.

7) Some are sexually and mentally abused by members in a practice that is so common there is a word for it, “13th stepping”. People abuse their seniority and take advantage of vulnerable newcomers.

I was diagnosed with depression before I started drinking. In AA, they dismissed the depression as a result of my drinking, and told me that if I worked the program properly, the depression would magically go away. It got worse. I could not accept the religious nature of the program and had no desire to become one of them. They kept telling me I was “too smart for the program” as if it were a bad thing.

The thing that saved me was seeing how members treated suicides in the rooms. They’d say, “At least he died sober” or “He just couldn’t get this simple program”. Attempting to spin someones death into a promotion for the program is sick. They do this to cover up their own fears. I refused to allow my death to be talked about like this. AA has the highest mortality rate of alcohol treatment methods. This is at least in part to an increased rate of suicide.

AA engages in black or white thinking; either a person is a success in AA or they become a cautionary tale. A person must either be an AA member or hopeless drunk and they do not care which, they will point to them as proof the program works.

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