CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. The Nature and Scope of Suicide
2. Recognizing the Progressive Development of Suicide
3. Substance Abuse as a Major Contributor to Suicide
4. Suicide Across the Life Span
5. Special Populations and Suicide Risk
6. Prevention and Early Intervention for Suicide and Substance Abuse Problems

Supplements
References
Resources

Holding the Lifeline
A Guide to Suicide Prevention

• Alcohol use, whether as a form of abuse and/or addiction, is potentially lethal as an impetus to suicide, when combined with other serious risk factors.
• The persons who are most at risk are those with access to firearms; who have had the recent loss of a significant relationship; who are unemployed or living alone; who have a co-occurring mental illness; and/or who have noticeably impulsive, aggressive, or antisocial tendencies.
• Persons using drugs other than alcohol, particularly in combination with a mental illness such as depression, are also at great risk of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and/or death by suicide.