Suicide Tied to Alcohol Intake

The more alcohol an individual drinks, the more the risk of suicide grows, according to a researcher at Canada’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

All Headline News reported Sept. 8 that CAMH senior researcher Robert Mann found that while suicide risk rose with alcohol consumption, as well as other factors like unemployment, the risk of suicide decreased when heavy drinkers joined Alcoholics Anonymous.

“These results suggest that a 1-liter increase in alcohol consumption led to an increase of 11 percent to 39 percent in suicides,” said Mann. “This observation is consistent with individual-level studies that show that heavy drinking, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence increase a person’s risk of suicide substantially … However, it was heartening to see that increasing AA membership was related to reduced suicide mortality rates.”

The link between drinking and suicide was stronger among women than men, Mann noted.