The Hope |
On May 13, 1996, 15 scared souls, borrowing heavily on the strength of the
Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, met for the first time, in order to "share our
experience, strength, and hope with each other that we may solve our common problem
and help others recover." What scared us most was that the program might not work -
that we'd be stuck in the trap of suicidal preoccupation and behavior. That fear drove
us forward instead of causing us to hang back. Somehow we found courage to step out,
still terrified, but finally able to tell someone that we were suicide addicts or survivors of
suicide. And then we began to tell our stories.
The story - telling didn't come easily. A small part of each one of us wondered
whether talking about suicide might make something bad happen - that it would set the
thoughts going once more, or push us into doing something stupid yet again. But oddly,
what happened was the opposite. Sharing our preoccupation stripped it of its power.
We realized quickly that we finally had a safe place - the one thing no one else had
been able to give us. Psychologists and psychiatrists might lock us up; our nearest and
dearest were hurt or incredulous or angry if we spoke honestly, and the church warned
us we were damned. But here, in this circle, we were finally, truly, completely safe. We
had come home.
Slowly the truth came out of us, the whole truth, for the first time. We could speak
freely, sharing the thoughts and fantasies that we'd locked away from everyone's sight
for years. It was a deep relief to realize that others had similar thoughts - to see the
nods and smiles of recognition: yes, I've been there too. They drew more truth out of
us. It got easier to talk.
The greatest comfort was our new awareness that none of us was alone. We had
company. We bonded with each other swiftly and deeply. We began to see that we
could do together what none of us could do alone. There were times when we wanted
to avoid the meeting, but something always drew us back. We owned up to our
ambivalence and kept returning. Something was happening. We all sensed that.
We found ourselves engaging in lively but deadly serious discussions. The more
serious the subject was, the louder the laughter. We found our own group expressions:
"Just hang in there!" was our watchword. As we began to speak more freely, we finally
saw how ludicrously insane our addiction had been; for the first time, we saw it as it
really was. We learned to take the addiction seriously, but also to take ourselves less
seriously. As this happened, we started to become detached from our illness. Safe in
the group, we could admit how powerless we were over suicide - sometimes with relief
and laughter, sometimes with enormous pain and tears.
One by one, we stepped forward to tell each other how the disease had begun,
how it had progressed over time, what our individual experiences were. As we grew
stronger and more confident, and as we recognized the part that secrecy had played in
the progression of our disease, we found ourselves willing and able to speak to
outsiders. No more holding back! We opened our meetings to the public.
With no other sources than the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and a
beginner's faith in God, we started to write our way to recovery. Writing out our truth
wasn't easy, but putting it down on paper made it more real, more concrete. The more
we found we could verbalize the addiction, the better we understood it and the weaker
its power over us. With each word, each sentence, the past began to make more and
more sense.
We found that we had business issues to deal with. What about putting together a
phone list? But what should we do if someone called a number on the list and claimed
to be suicidal? For the first time, really, we tried to walk in someone else's shoes, to
imagine what the person might want or need. Should we just listen, or should we try to
get help for the person? People were unsure and nervous. In the end, we decided to
trust God to do the right thing and went ahead with the phone list. It proved to be a
powerful tool.
This is how Suicide Anonymous got off the ground - the first Twelve - Step
program for people addicted to suicide. It has proved to be, quite literally, a life-saver.
© 1stBooks; Bloomington, IN; Seduction of Suicide Understanding and Recovering
From Addiction to Suicide; Kevin Taylor, M.D.
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