The same lack of inhibitions that can lead a drinker to wear a lampshade as a hat can have consequences that are far more tragic for people with suicidal thoughts, a recent study suggests.

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"We've always known that there is a relationship between alcoholism and suicide," says study co-author Ronald Kessler, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. "But the previous research sort of stopped there, suggesting that it was just heavy-duty substance abusers who would have the problem.

"I think the surprise for us," he adds, "was the finding that even non-problem drinkers had an elevated risk."

Kessler and his associates confirmed the link between alcoholism and suicide in their study: alcoholics were found to be more than three times as likely to try to kill themselves as people who don't drink.

But the study also found that your odds of attempting suicide are almost two times greater if you drink than if you are a teetotaller - even if you don't drink to excess and are not an alcoholic

"It appears that there's something about alcohol that has a dis-inhibiting effect on people who have been thinking about killing themselves and makes them impetuously act on that impulse in a way they wouldn't if they hadn't been drinking," Kessler says.

Alcohol not the only culprit
According to Kessler's research, however, users of other drugs are also just as likely to try to kill themselves as those who drink alcohol. The risks are about the same for users of marijuana, inhalants and heroin as they are for users of alcohol.

The study also found that the risk of suicide increased dramatically when someone is a user of more than one drug. While smoking marijuana may be just as likely to provoke a suicide attempt as drinking alcohol, for example, someone doing both is in significantly greater danger.

In fact, someone using two drugs is 4.2 times more likely than a nonuser to attempt suicide, and the odds go up from there, depending on the number of drugs being abused, according to the study.

One of the most important implications of the study is that even relatively casual drinking or drug taking is dangerous for people who are thinking of killing themselves. The researchers also noted that among the sample, those exhibiting alcohol and substance dependence exhibited a higher likelihood of attempting suicide.

The problem, Kessler says, is that people who are depressed or suicidal are often among those most likely to turn to alcohol or drugs.

"We've become a pill-taking society, and of course there is a lot of illicit drug use as well," he adds. "More and more people are using medication - and alcohol is a kind of medication - to deal with their problems."

That's a dead end, Berman agrees.

lcohol or drugs have never solved anyone's problems," he says. "Instead they make those problems worse."

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