We have a very serious problem in this country with how we understand and deal with the high correlations between addiction, depression, and suicide.

Our typical assumption of a causal chain is a bit like a yoda-ism. Depression leads to abuse, abuse leads to addiction, and addiction leads to suicide.

Part of this causal fallacy is that people get hopped up on whatever they are addicted to . . . drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever, and when they are beyond making a rational decision because of the high they are feeling, they make an irrational choice to end things.

Anecdotally, I don't find this to be true. And I think there is enough data extant to find out if this is true. I think that addiction finds its own reason. There are some genetic components to it and some social. Certainly some depressed people turn to abuse and abuse leads to addiction, but the story just isn't that simple.

The biggest problem with addiction is the way that some addicts are treated by society. No matter where your addiction came from, genetic predisposition or intentional abuse, addiction leads to depression. Once you realize that society says that you have no choice and no control over your life, that no one trusts you to behave responsibly in the presence of whatever it is you are addicted to, that you have a disease with no cure, and that society looks down on you for having it, you will become depressed.

When everyone in your life, everyone who loves you says at the same time, "It's not your fault, but we fault you for it." When everyone you love looks at you and says, "I understand you have a problem. But I can't be with you anymore." When everyone in the job world says, "You're great! We love you! But we can't hire you because of this thing that is out of your control."

That, my friends, is the definition of depression. When society's only response to your plight is, "We don't blame you for who you are, we just blame you for who you are." what rational option is there left in the world? What sane person wants to live in a world like that? Who wants to live in a world where you have been defined as a failure, no matter what you do or don't do? What person wants to live in a world where basic logic has no meaning?

No one wants to live with that. It is particularly frustrating to see people addicted to all kinds of nonsense that is NOT looked down on by society. The reality is that peer-approval is a more powerful drug than anything any of us addicts smoke, shoot, have sex with, or shove up our butts. And the self-righteous masses sit around basking in the glow of their shared high of moral superiority, as though that's not a drug, and you aren't addicted to it.

Meanwhile, we feel sorry for or demonize or criticize those people who take their own lives to get away from the madness of being an addict in a world full of hypocritical addicts.

I'm not saying that I'm in favor of suicide. I'm saying that suicide is the ever-present shadow of a society that treats addicts like criminals, and I'm saying that it is a rational response to some kinds of treatment. We desperately need to understand this. It's not irrational, it's not crazy, and it's not because someone is messed up on drugs. It's a completely rational response to an unending situation that has no positive outcome.

I won't ever do it because two people have affected my life by doing it in all the most horrible ways. Every time it crosses my mind I think about my family and my brothers and my friends and how much that would hurt them. But I have a shadow that says to me every morning when I wake up, "Really? You want to go through this again?"

And I say, "Yes."