Bringing the suicide issue to light
Suicide was no shock to Al Holm. As a police chaplain, he’d consoled too many families who’d found a son or daughter or husband or grandmother dead by his or her own hand. He’d counseled too many inmates tired of their failure to stay out of trouble.
But those weren’t the souls who drove Al to start the Idaho Suicide Prevention Network. The six people among his friends and family who decided to kill themselves haunted Al for so long that he finally decided he had to do something for others and to heal himself.
“The issue needs to be brought to light. It’s a major problem,” he says. “It’s not talked about, like syphilis and sex in the 1950s.”
Al, 68, most recently was the first minister in Coeur d’Alene to offer drive-through weddings at a coffee stand. Achingly early hours pushed him to quit the coffee business. He rented a downtown Coeur d’Alene office and still performs weddings there.
Weddings have stayed his fallback source of income since the First Christian Church ordained him in 1979. When he wasn’t uniting couples in holy matrimony, he was putting his degree in chemical dependency counseling to work with substance abusers or comforting accident victims as a police chaplain.
Retirement didn’t sit well with Al, so he decided to sell coffee and marry couples on the side, until it wore him out. He interpreted his fatigue as a sign he needed to lift some of the weight on his mind. Al signed up for suicide prevention training with Paul Quinnett’s QPR Institute in Spokane.
Psychologist Paul Quinnett, Ph.D, is recognized nationally as an authority on suicide prevention. His school has trained more than 200,000 people across the United States to prevent suicide with questions, persuasion and referrals to help. Al had taken a suicide prevention course in 1994 to use as a jail chaplain. This time, he wanted to learn to train others to stop people from taking their own lives.
Local statistics stunned him. Kootenai County had 24 suicides in 2002, the last date for which vital statistics are available. That number means that out of every 100,000 people, 20.6 kill themselves. That’s nearly twice the national average of 10.5 self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people.
“No one knows why,” Al says, his eyes heavy with worry.
Al learned that more women attempt suicide than men, but more men complete the deed. Guns are the means of choice, with leaping and drowning not far behind. Suicide is the death least talked about openly. Some clergy refuse to preside at funerals for people who killed themselves.
The stigma connected to suicide saddens Al. He’s certain suicide is wrong, but not because he considers it a sin. Studies shows that people prevented from killing themselves usually never try again.
“They’re having problems and they’re not rational enough to make such a decision,” Al says.
Now that he’s certified as a trainer, Al wants to teach prevention to people who work with risky populations –school counselors, police officers, social and health care workers. Tom Moore, who runs the Lake City Senior Center, called Al when he heard about the program.
“I want to meet with him and find out more,” Tom says. He lost his sister to suicide years ago, so the risk is never far from his mind. “I can’t say we don’t have the need, but I’ve been associated with the center for nine years and haven’t heard of an attempt. I’d rather be trained, though, than say we should’ve done something after the fact.”
Al will teach him to ask questions if someone concerns him. People who have attempted suicide often say no one asked them if anything was wrong or if they were considering hurting themselves. Al will tell Tom most suicidal people will admit their plans because they need to know someone cares enough about them to ask.
He’ll suggest Tom encourage the person to talk about his depression. At that point, Tom should listen. Eventually, he should accompany or refer the person to a counselor who can help. Al plans to keep a list of referrals—Health and Welfare’s mental health department, Kootenai Medical Center, the Dirne Community Clinic.
He’s offering the 90-minute prevention training through his nonprofit United Living Ministries. It costs $10 per person, but Al also will speak to groups free about suicide prevention. He’s not charging enough to support the program, so Al is applying for grants and depending on fund-raisers to stay alive. He’s selling $25 gift certificates now that are good for meals at the Hot Rod Café, Outback Steakhouse or Crickets. The money goes to the prevention program.
To book a training session or for more information on the Idaho Suicide Prevention Network, call Al at 664-6308.