Suicide in AA

Blame the victim.

Suicide in AA; my own experience

Suicide is a huge problem among members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I tried to off myself after a year and a half in AA.
I had lost all hope for the future, made my plans, and started the process of dying. When I came face to face with the black monolith, I discovered, much to my dismay, that I didn't have the courage to finish the job.

I'm one of the lucky ones. 

My will gave me no other choice than to survive.

You might wonder how a sober AA member reaches the point where they think suicide is the only option. If you ask the unsuccessful suicides, their answers are strikingly similar. Each one that I have spoken to says the program made them feel so bad about themselves that the didn't want to live anymore.

Specifically, it was the steps that took them down. 

That's how it was for me. But it wasn't just the steps.

For years after leaving AA I took complete responsibility, in good stepper fashion, for the emotional damage I sustained. I've always insisted that I was not exploited as a newcomer to AA, except in minor ways, and I always "saw my part". Maybe I lost  a few bucks here and there, and had a couple of devious sponsors, but I never let anyone 13 step me.

Or did I?

I was not forced to join AA.

No one coerced me into joining AA, unless you count the fact that AA was the only game in town when I wanted help with substance abuse. I was in the middle of a divorce, detoxing, and rather manic due to thyroid disease, but I felt like I was in charge of my mind. I instantly spotted the sociopaths and thought I was immune to all the obvious con games.

Nevertheless, the slogans and dogma crept into my thinking. 

A lifelong history as the family scapegoat made it all to easy to see myself as selfish, self-centered, and fatally diseased. During my AA fourth step, I was told to take responsibility for not just everything annoying and harmful I had done to others, but for every time I had been abused by family and strangers. My ego rebelled, but the poison entered my brain. I became extremely, hopelessly depressed, depressed to the point of despair.

At the advice of my AA friends, I sought professional help. 

Everyone could see that I needed professional help. If I wasn't going to die, I desperately needed a therapist to help me extricate myself from the black hole I'd fallen into. There were obvious signs that my self-loathing had its roots in my intimate relationships. I hoped to resolve issues stemming from sexual abuse as an adolescent.

The therapist assigned to me reinforced the ego deflation I had undergone in AA. 

She had been AA indoctrinated, no doubt. She chastised me severely when I displayed extreme negative emotions by weeping and wailing during our therapy sessions. Knowing I was an AA member, she decided to send me off to 12 step rehab. I went, but only stayed for three days.
Rehab was a 12 Step clown show.

I got righteously, gloriously, furiously angry, and said "fuck this shit".

And that's when my healing began.

I never let anyone 13 Step me in AA.

...or did I?

My life before AA taught me how to survive around alcoholics.

In AA I was told to forget all of what I had learned. Apparently I did, and it was a huge mistake.

I became involved with another AA newcomer after going to meetings for a couple of months. 

He was a sociopath, narcissistic, jobless, and could not stay sober. He was young and cute and extremely talented, and I was nuts about him. He'd been hanging around AA for years, but I can't say he 13 stepped me. He was pretty much a clone of every other boyfriend I had ever had. Prior to going to AA I would have known exactly how to deal with him.

The steps taught me that I was a selfish cast iron bitch. 

The stories of other members made me believe that I had always abused and played mind games with the people around me. I wanted more than anything Not to be that kind of person. I jumped through hoops trying to understand and be compassionate towards my boyfriend, who did not buy into the 12 Step ideal of humility. He was able to use everything I had learned in AA in order to manipulate me.
The worst part was, no matter what I said or did, I could not get him to go away.

The three days I spent in rehab managed to break that spell, too. 

He gathered a selection of potential girlfriends during the time I was away. Most of the women who had previously tried to get me to break up with him were now lining up for the chance to be his caretaker, or to exploit him instead.

"Forget everything you think you know", "where did your best thinking get you", and "fear is false evidence appearing real". 

These were things I heard almost every day from  experienced AA members. Although I fought to hold onto my sense of self, more confidence in my own judgement slipped away from me the longer I remained in AA.

When I surrendered my faith in my own intuition, I lost all defense against bad advice and emotional manipulation. I was incapable of screening out the crazy things I heard from my fellow AA members, and could not keep from internalizing their less-than-helpful analyses of me.

This unintentional dropping of mental defense is the key to working the steps. 

It's also the door that opens one up to mind control, manipulation, and exploitation. In my case, dropping my guard brought on a level of despair that lead me to believe that only death could make it stop.

Much thanks to Mike BD and James G, and the many videos posted on the 

blamethenile YouTube channel, including those I've embedded on this page.

  If you do find yourself slipping into suicidal depression, in or out of AA, 

please consider Dialectical Behavioral Therapy as an option. 

The lecture below is by Dr. Marsha Linehan, who invented DBT

in the 1980's. Her lectures are intelligent and engaging, and may 

set you on the path to an effective therapeutic environment.

The Twelve Steps are Not your only option.

Be well!