Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that acute alcohol misuse is a common concomitant of suicidal behavior for men and women across the age span. Also, most alcohol-related suicide decedents had BAC levels exceeding 0.08 g/dl. The findings reported herein point to the need for further analyses of the role of alcohol involvement in suicidal behavior in all age groups. Because of the high rate of alcohol dependence in the NVDRS sample (40% in some age groups), health care providers need to recognize and discuss with their at-risk patients the role that acute alcohol use plays in suicidal behavior. Equally important, the findings underscore the crucial need to design policies that minimize harmful use of alcohol and intoxication as an essential component of suicide prevention initiatives [24, 27].
