ABSTRACT
The association between alcoholism and suicide is well established. A recent follow-up over at least ten years of 2,070 diagnosed alcoholics admitted to mental hospitals in England and Wales showed a greatly increased mortality risk, particularly amongst females. The hunt for a pre-alcoholic personality type has proved fruitless, but there is some evidence that the alcoholic suicide is more psychologically disturbed than others. Casualty departments are familiar with the young man who is admitted late in the evening having consumed small quantity of drugs at the end of a weekend’s heavy drinking. The life of an alcoholic with its succession of hopes frustrated by failure with loss and recrimination would, in itself, readily explain recurrent feelings of failure, isolation, hopelessness and depression.
