A gal from my Monday AA group committed suicide Friday night.

[Lil Missy]

She recently had 10 years of sobriety but had left AA for some years. She was in her mid to late 30's I'd guess. She came back about 6 months ago after a suicide attempt. She was really struggling with depression for the most part, and admittedly was not working any sort of a program. She recently stated she felt her problem was "untreated alcoholism".

Those of us who go to AA know what it means to suffer "untreated alcoholism". Otherwise known as a dry drunk. She could be difficult to get along with, rather abrasive at times. I made recently judgments about this person because of her behavior and attitude that I now realize were unfair. She was hurting, she was struggling, and unbeknown to us she was unbearably miserable and a hairs breadth away from a permanent solution.

Something happened Thursday night or Friday that was the last straw for her. She didn't reach out this time. After she missed her Friday evening work shift at coworker checked on her after he got off work and found her.

Her name is Angel. May she rest in peace.

[Lindsey]

1. Very, Very sad. RIP, Angel. n/t

[get the red out]

2. Bless her

I, of course, can in no way pretend to guess what this woman's pain was caused by, but my personal journey is that I struggled with depression for nearly 18 years in sobriety until I finally sought help for this problem as well. Untreated or improperly treated depression is miserable. In my case I felt people in meetings would see me as horribly inferior in recovery if I admitted that I was thinking about suicide a lot. In a way, I'm glad I didn't speak of it in meetings but just shared with my sponsor and a few close friends. I needed help for this problem on it's own merit, so to speak. It took a long time for me to admit I had a problem with depression, and I am grateful I had acceptance of my problem with it from my sponsor and people close to me. My outlook changed as much as when I got sober when I finally accepted help. It was amazing.

[varkam]

3. Rest in peace Angel

It really is tragic how addiction just takes and takes until there's nothing left except the simple breath and pulse that keeps us going.

[ismnotwasm]

4. I'm so sorry

We've lost a few people over the years to suicide, usually from clinical depression, or some sort of underlying mental condition.

I don't wish to take away anything from your grief, and I hope I don't with my comment here. One thing I firmly believe in though is outside help. Our program exist to treat alcoholism, it works and it works very well. It may not work for depression. Bill W. was a depressive and managed to stay sober, but given his experiments with LSD and vitamin therapy, I suspect if decent antidepressants were available, he would have tried them.

My step-daughters lost their mother to suicide, a combination of sever borderline personality disorder and probably untreated alcoholism. She was very hard to like. It's a very painful experience and does effect others for the rest of there lives. To this day, I wish I had reached out more, done more.

[Stuart G]

5. I am sorry.

[Kajsa]

6. I am so sorry, Lil Missy.

May she rest in peace.