Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences

Rating:
Summary: The Suicide Cookbook
Review: "Suicide and Attempted Suicide: Methods and Consequences" by Geo Stone is a cookbook. But instead of teaching you how to make a soufflé or Peking Duck, it has recipes for death. Like any good cookbook, the methods are clearly categorized by chapter (such as asphyxiation), and each has step by step instructions, as well as medical background about how it works, how difficult it is to do, what could go wrong, and what to do in each case to ensure lethality.

There's no nonsense here. You won't be talked down to or patronized. It's accurate and precise information written by a doctor who has studied each method. This makes it an important and interesting book because there is very little accurate information on this subject available. Dr. Stone is clear to point out that there are many misconceptions about suicide methods in the general public. And if you're going to play with fire, don't you think you it is wise to know what you're doing?

Just like any cookbook the author does not make tangential remarks about why he made this book. But there is an underlying message of personal responsibility here that can be gleaned from the book's introduction and Dr. Stone's dark humor.

Part One of the book describes suicide in broad terms, speaking of the different kinds of people who in the past had made successful or unsuccessful attempts. And there's a clear warning that due to lack of information some people who didn't really want to die, end up making the tragic mistake of using a method that is much more lethal than intended. The reverse warning is also here: That for those who wanted to die, and took action without clear thought often results in waking up in an Emergency Room with a damaged body or a slow and painful death.

Personally, I am more familiar with genuinely wanting to die rather than using a suicide attempt as a gesture for attention. When I read this book, I was depressed and specifically purchased the book for the "recipes" in Part Two. I was amazed to discover how many choices you have, even when your goal is the same. As I continued to read, I realized that these methods would always be there, waiting for me, tucked away like a fire extinguisher. Despite the great pain that you might be feeling, I realized that there is no need to rush things. I could execute one of these methods, and ensure my death, at any time I chose.

What I'm about to say might sound strange to you initially, but this feeling of certainty and control over your own destiny is something that I hadn't felt before. So, now, as I finished reading, and put it back on the shelf, I wondered what things in life existed to which I had not properly been introduced. If there were so many ways to die, could there be even more ways to live? I believe this feeling of control and certainty that I now felt is what kept the book on the shelf and me in the game. I hope that if you purchase this book, you will experience a similar feeling.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best book on suicide, but the best on suicide method
Review: (...)this is a book about which it's hard to be neutral. If you think that suicide is always wrong, a sin, or a crime, you won't like it: the book provides lots of "how-to" information that can be used to commit suicide. But at the same time there is an anti-suicide thread running through the text---time and again, the author suggests delay, alternatives, and medical treatment, so the in-your-face pro-suicide crowd (small, but vocal) won't be happy either. Further, the author's website contains, among other things, lots of grisly photos that seem intended to discourage suicide.

Unlike Gaul, the book is divided into two parts. The first half is an overview of suicide, covering history, causes of suicide (considered through sociology, psychiatry, and biology), American and Dutch end-of-life medical practices, and a few related areas. Compressed into a little over a hundred pages, this broad coverage is not terribly detailed but functions well as a summary and is both interesting and well done.

The second half describes, with sometimes weirdly-fascinating factoids, what is known about suicide methods (the "how-to" part) and their medical consequences (the "why-you-probably-shouldn't-try-them" part). If you're interested in suicide methods, this is the best source of information available. If you're not, there's far more information here than you want to know. Trust me.

The book's layout is poor. References are in the back organized by chapter, but pages in the text don't have chapter headers, so it's easy to lose your place, whilst flipping back and forth. Footnotes are at the end of each chapter instead of at the bottom of the page, another annoying practise, and there are a surprising number of typso.

In sum, if you want to know why people kill themselves, there are better sources. If you want to know how, this is your book.

Rating:
Summary: YOUR BROTHER, HANGING?
Review: Below, a reviewer states he found the internet instructions of strangulation on his brother's computer a couple hours after finding his brother's dead body, in what I assume is "suspension hanging".

C'mon, we all know that's a bunch of bunk. I mean, the horror of finding a dead body, hanging by the neck...much less your brother's dead body hanging by the neck...and you're surfing his hard drive soon after such a gruesome discovery? Wouldn't the police be looking for a note on it? Seized in a search?

PLEASE....I'm laughing now. This book was available at Borders and anywhere else. Just like FINAL EXIT. Simply because someone found it on the internet doesn't mean the author is responsible in any way. If I made the suggestion to "go jump off a bridge," and someone did, in fact, I really don't think I would be held accountable. The information has always been available. Guns are easy to acquire, and with the right caliber, they are quite fatal. Because someone uses one to destroy his or her head, the gun manufacturer shouldn't be liable. Amazon sold the book new and allows the resale of it used. Are they part of the conspiracy?

Duh....

I'm tired of people posting the most idiotic notes concerning this book.

YOU DON'T GO TO HELL FOR KILLING YOURSELF. Suicide is a product of mental illness and / or biological predisposition. How can an Infinite "God" condemn someone who acted when outside of his or her mind? Look at Judas and his suicide. NOT A WORD is said in condemnation. Look it up in the Bible, if you feel the need and don't believe me.

On CNN recently, I saw a lawyer representing a family who had a daughter who killed herself via the manner described in FINAL EXIT (third edition). She was instructed, directly from the book, to use Helium. It's fatal in concentrate. Since she did it, the lawyer now wants to prosecute the person who made her privy to the information. THIS IS IDIOTIC. WHEN are people fully responsible for the choices they make? WHY do we look to blame anyone else but ourselves for these things? Her family should be looking at their behavior and how they failed in helping her...not seeking to condemn someone who simply educated the woman.

GROW UP AND REALIZE YOU CREATE AND LIVE IN THE SOCIETY YOU WANT.

Mike

Rating:
Summary: YOUR BROTHER, HANGING?
Review: Just now my neck pains terribly, but as in much other occasions of my life, I don't think in die and I'm yet not very young. It's simply I have ever a wish to win when things go bad (and they are being better as ever). Curiously this doesn't happens to me when what I have are false problems not really very hard.
But well, there are drug addicts, people who drinks, dements... Summing up, life is hard and some persons doesn't know how to fight with all these weigh. I can't condemn them, at first because I know stupefacients and alcohol are only theoretically fought and forbidden, but, how many politics and businessmen use them, trades with them, enriches with them?
And so, perhaps someone wants to end. Most religions forbids that, but not all, and furthermore, many people isn't religious. It seems to me a sort of aberration a book is dedicated technically in full to this matter, but I find still more grotesque the affirmations of some people saying "this handbook is incomplete" You can fail, but, truly is correct to say you have dead incompletely? Anybody can die more than once? These observations are absurd, very own of people who truly doesn't know from first hand what terrible thing are non natural death and suicide. People who wants to die I think don't need this book, but here the question is if it's well done, and I think it is, in a strange way and quality.

Rating:
Summary: Completely Mortified
Review: This book is disgusting and disturbing. I can't believe a book would be written including different ways to commit suicide. I wish this book was banned and any others like it. I lost my brother to suicide about 6 months ago and it makes my stomach churn to even think a book like this is out there.

Rating:
Summary: the person from NY who said this book is "Sick" is SO wrong!
Review: This book is not "sick"--it's absolutely necessary, both for those of us who have a serious intent to die and for those of us who are toying with the idea and don't want to cause permanent irreversible damage on the way there. A book like this helps more than it hurts because it prevents people from making attempts that are sure to fail and will cause all kinds of damage along the way. I belong to an internet newsgroup that provides the same kind of service. Talking honestly and openly about suicide SAVES lives, it doesn't *cause* more deaths (as the author said, it's like teenage sex--if you fail to talk about it, it doesn't in any way mean that it's not still going to happen). This book is an invaluable resource for anyone (and that's a lot of us) who has thought about taking that step towards self-inflicted death. my only beef with the author is that he puts depressed people in the "irrational" category. now, if someone is psychotically depressed, hearing voices and the like, that's one thing, but your normal, run-of-the-mill non-psychotic depression is NOT, in my opinion, to be put into that "irrational" category. depression is as serious and as painful as any long-term physical illness, and it ought to be viewed as such. especially because there are cases in which depression can be prolonged for many years and can ultimately be untreatable. this is definitely a book worth owning.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Necessary
Review: This is a disturbing book, but, given the culture we live in, an essential one. I believe it will deter those that need detering and assist those who truly need self-deliverance and are unable to get help from others.

One comment: geo stone, along with all others writing about 'taboo' matters, is still way behind when it comes to an informed and humane understanding of depression - indeed 'mental health' illnesses in all their forms. Today we understand that epilepsy is a condition. Years ago people living with any kind of epilepsy - there are many forms of the illness - were considered to be inhabited by the devil, satan, etc. Our views on mental health illnesses remain just as stunted and backward.

Many people living with, for example, agitated depression since childhood have treatment-resistant brains that have incurred damage over time. These good folks are currently considered off-limits by everyone when the subject of assisted suicide is mentioned. The excrutiating and relentless pain of untreated, long-term depression in any form, rivals any physical pain from cancer, kidney stones - anything. Yet still, people with depression are lumped together; termed 'mentally ill'; and are treated like scum. Even those living with schizophrenia have moments inbetween the episodes where they can see the hell they occupy. Many folks living with depression of any kind never get a break from the pain - they suffer and witness and exprience the pain without any numbing or relief AND are amongst the most sane people you could hope to meet. They are not 'crazy' - they have illnesses. They are not 'irrational' - they are ill.

Someone dying of cancer has the right to assistance from groups like the Hemlock Society, but not someone in the hell of depression that has not been touched by any kind of medication at any time. My sincere hope is that our culture will begin to understand that depression can hit in many guises and that many people live untreated in hell. These people deserve the right to assisted self-deliverance and if that help is not around the corner, the right to know, in detail, how to deliver themselves so that the suffering may cease. Who amongst us should be expected to live an unlivable life? Who should be so punished?

I think this is a great book. And I hope that works like this will open up other 'taboo' areas, such as the one I've written about above.


Rating:
Summary: If you want information about suicide methods, this is it.
Review: This is an odd, idiosyncratic, fascinating, uneven, irritating, and important book: there's nothing out there like it. "Suicide and Attempted Suicide" is primarily a study of suicide methods---how people try to kill themselves (or, more often, try to get attention or help). It reads as if it were written by more than one author, or over an extended period of time: the tone bounces unpredictably from didactic to ironic to funny (be sure to read the chapter endnotes!).

The first half of the book touches on a wide range of suicide topics: history of suicide, the legal situation, treatment options, terminal illness, philosophical issues, euthanasia and assisted suicide. The information is interesting and well enough presented, but tries to cover too much ground in too few pages. A reader unfamiliar with this material will find it a reasonable, though patchy, introduction that can be followed up from the author's well-chosen "suggested reading" list.

The heart of the book is the second half, where it discusses suicide methods and their consequences in clinical detail. This treatment will surely be controversial, since the author provides "how to" (and "how not to") information that can be used either to commit suicide or to carry out a suicidal gesture.

I've seen only one other book that takes a similar approach, Derek Humphry's "Final Exit" to which this book will inevitably be compared. "Suicide and Attempted Suicide" is the far more comprehensive and detailed work, which is both its strength and its weakness. There is no better---in fact no other---book that discusses the variety of suicide methods in any significant depth. However the large amount of information comes at a cost: a suicidal reader may have a hard time extracting the data he wants from the mass of data he doesn't need. Similarly, the casual reader will probably find the quantity and details of evidence overwhelming.

The writing style is rather pedestrian, which doesn't detract much from a book of this sort, but occasionally slips into "medicalese" which does. On the other hand there are quite a few interesting and informative asides and digressions. These range from early Christian theological disputes, to minimizing heat loss in marine mammals, to the words of Jim Jones (remember Jonestown?) at an anti-suicide rally in San Francisco.

Given the sometimes-gory descriptions, the absence of photos and drawings is a bit surprising. However the author says in a "note to the reader" that these will be available on his website.

Overall, flaws and all, I highly recommend this book for anyone who has seriously considered suicide, or is presently contemplating it. With more reservations---the first half has too little detail, the second half too much---I would recommend it for general readers as well.

Rating:
Summary: If this is not a "how-to" manual; it is damn close....
Review: This is one of the few books that I have had qualms about reviewing. It is so morbidly fascinating that it is hard to set aside. It doesn't appear to have been written exclusively for psychiatric professionals- the style is too readable and the statistics are too readily useful and understandable.

The first part of the book does a good job in examining the history, philosophy, study approaches, and reasons for suicide. The author makes it quite clear that he does not automatically consider suicide to be inappropriate in all cases, nor does he automatically rule out the existence of rational suicide. There are also an excellent couple of chapters on the subject of euthanasia and its application in other cultures.

It is the second part of this volume that has made it famous, or infamous, in the mental health world. While the author clearly states on the flyleaf that the book should not be considered a "how to" guide, it is difficult to imagine how anyone could not foresee that this is exactly how it could be used. The author devotes a chapter to each and every means of self termination and then sums each up each method with pros and cons (asphyxia, cutting and stabbing, drowning, drugs and poisons, electrocution, gunshot wounds, hanging and strangulation, hypothermia, and jumping.) The chapters give quite detailed descriptions of how to successfully carry out these acts and the odds of your being successful. For instance, not only are you told specifically where to shoot yourself, but also the individual effectiveness of the various calibers of bullet is examined. The old hangman's formula for determining the height of drop for a given weight is included. There is even a table to calculate the exact velocity at which you will hit the ground based on the starting elevation of a jump (he points out as a rule of thumb that a jump of 150 feet on land and one of 250 feet over water is 95 to 98% fatal.) The only thing that makes me think that such a detailed guide is not a how-to book is the fact that he also gives detailed descriptions of the horrible injuries resulting from botched attempts. To be more effective in this respect, perhaps photographs should have been included.

If this book keeps individuals from suffering the traumatic effects of botched suicide then it is a worthy effort. Similarly, if it helps those that merely intend a survivable suicide "gesture" from going too far it will also have served its purpose. There has been a concerted campaign on the part of some mental health professionals to remove this book from circulation. I can't say that I approve of that effort, but I would definitely keep it out of the hands of minors and the mentally unstable.