What began as a few hours of catching up over beers and banter with an old friend quickly turned into one of those nights you’d rather forget. As soon as he took a seat, his normally upbeat demeanour disappeared. We have been friends for twenty-five years. Usually, the conversation flowed like wine. This time, it was like kicking water uphill. I could tell something was wrong because he was looking around the bar and avoiding eye contact with me. Call it intuition or just good old-fashioned gut instinct, but I knew there was something he was not telling me.
Alcohol is a great social lubricant. It desensitises the body while stimulating the lips. My friend began to open up after drinking and peeling the labels off half a dozen bottles of Coors. The response was brief and somewhat slurred: “Shaun killed himself.”
Nothing quite prepares you for hearing that a friend has committed suicide. It’s like a slow punch to the gut that you can’t avoid. There’s a sense that time is slowing—a kind of zombified inertia. Nonetheless, there was something strangely familiar about it. Several close friends have died by suicide over the years. My first experience with losing someone occurred when I was still in high school. I later discovered that he had put on his favourite football shirt and tied a rope around his neck; his parents returned home to find him motionless and unresponsive. He was buried with that shirt in a cemetery not far from where I grew up.
We’ve all been seduced by the notion that lemmings commit suicide. However, the act of killing oneself is fundamentally a human behaviour that dates back thousands of years—consider the Hindu practice of Sati, in which a widow sacrifices herself by laying atop her dead husband’s funeral pyre or the Japanese act of Seppuku or Hara-kiri. Others choose self-immolation (setting yourself on fire) as a form of political protest. Regardless of cultural relativism or personal judgement, taking one’s own life raises significant ethical and philosophical questions about personal choice. If we have the right to life, should we be able to end it when we want?
A few months ago, a 64-year-old American woman became the first person to take her own life with the Sarco pod (the controversial euthanasia device). Nestled in a verdant private forest in the canton of Schaffhausen, northern Switzerland, the unnamed woman—who had a severely weakened immune system—climbed inside, entered a code on the touchpad, and the Sarco flooded with nitrogen. She was dead a few minutes later. As if this macabre display wasn’t terrifying enough, a section of the apparatus separates and turns into a handy coffin.
The Sarco—shorthand for Sarcophagus—is the brainchild of Philip Nitschke, a former Australian physician famous for trying to perfect the technological facilitation of suicide for more than thirty years. Nitschke is the director of Exit International, a Netherlands-based organisation that offers help and advice on assisted suicide. The group invested over $1 million in creating the 3D-printed machine, described as ‘the Tesla of assisted suicide.’
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The way we deal with death is changing. Our desire for instant gratification in the twenty-first century is a result of the hyper-connected digital age. A society that relies on quick fixes. Life has become the ultimate commodity. That now includes mortality. Last year, hospital staff told a young Canadian woman with a history of depression that she could choose assisted suicide over receiving specialised psychiatric treatment. In addition to asking to see a psychologist, Kathrin Mentler went to a hospital in search of a place to stay for the night. They asked her if she had considered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
In 2016, Canada legalised assisted dying, but the law only covered terminally ill adults. The law was amended in 2021 to include people with non-life-threatening illnesses. In 2016, just over 1,000 people received assisted suicide; by 2022, that number had increased more than tenfold to over 13,000 MAiD cases, or 4.1 percent of all deaths in Canada.
In 2023, the Canadian parliament debated legislation concerning mental illness. Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland has put the bill on ice until 2027, claiming that “the system is not ready.” If the bill had passed, anyone suffering from a mental illness would have been able to legally take their own life. It would cover those with serious drug addictions, as well as those who are homeless or in poverty and may feel that taking their own life is a better option than becoming a ‘burden’ on the government. Opinion surveys reveal that Canadians broadly support the deregulation of life. One-third of Canadians support assisted suicide for the poor and homeless.
Closer to home, the UK parliament has just voted in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill, which will enable terminally ill adults (who are expected to die within 6 months) to end their life early.
According to Nitschke, if you are older than fifty and mentally competent, anyone should be able to use the Sarco, regardless of their health. My friend met the requirements. Would his life have been better with an ‘efficient’ death after learning of the horrifying manner in which he took his own life?
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Shaun’s death was no rare occurrence. According to the most recent data available, men made up three-quarters of the 6,069 suicides in England and Wales in 2023 - an 8 percent increase from the year before and the highest number in 25 years.
I got to know Shaun when I was working my way through university in the 2000s. He was easygoing with a razor-sharp wit, the kind of guy who could tell a joke that would leave your jaw hurting with laughter. Most of all, he was social. In his thirties, he was the life and soul of the party. Our friendship circle grew through a shared love of live music, spicy jokes, and Friday night pub sessions. Then he got engaged, had kids, and moved out of the area—our friendship barely survived the daunting onset of middle age. It was perfectly normal—part of life’s natural trade-off. Being a parent was everything to him.
Four years ago, his wife left him, and he lost his job. He withdrew and shut himself away. I barely heard from him—I would send him a text and not get a reply for three weeks. Every time I called, it went straight to voicemail. On the rare occasions when I saw him, I suggested we meet up, but the excuses came quickly. “I’m fine, mate. Stop worrying,” he would say.
According to a 2019 survey, almost one-fifth (18 percent) of male respondents admitted to not having a close friend, while 32 percent said they did not have a best friend. According to the same survey, nearly half of all men (44 percent) reported feeling lonely “sometimes, often, or all of the time.”
Loneliness is a problem that primarily affects men. When we talk about it, the ego typically takes over. After all, loneliness carries a certain stigma. I frequently speak with men who joke constantly about their increasingly hermetic existence, where the wife organises the social calendar and the pet dog is the only friend they need. However, nothing lasts forever. My neighbour John was 82 when he lost his wife. He got himself a dog, and I could see him walking it five times a day from my window. His regular walks led him to meet a group of dog walkers, with whom he developed a friendship. Then one day I stopped seeing him. I found out his dog died, so he never left the house. I never heard from him again. My neighbour told me last week that he died alone in his flat.
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It’s not controversial to say that men lose friends as they age. When it comes to friends, most guys prefer quality over quantity. I am guilty of this—I have just three close friends myself. I get it; it’s difficult. Establishing a friendship requires a lot of investment, most notably time, which becomes scarce as we get older. Councils and local authorities arrange public health funerals when no known relatives or friends are available to plan or pay for the service. An overwhelming majority—estimated to be 80 percent—are for men. John was one of them.
Let’s face it: as a species, we’re pretty bad at staying in touch. It doesn’t help that we now interact with each other in very different ways. Social media networks have replaced traditional social networks. A six-pack has taken over the pub, and Amazon is the new night out at the movies. Other places we used to hang out, including nightclubs and music venues, are closing.
We need to rediscover how to engage with others. Friendships are often formed during periods of physical exertion and competition. I hate to milk the cow of nostalgia, but remember when you were a kid? You’d make plans to meet a friend and then spend the day doing crazy things with them. That’s what we need: activities! Whether it's chopping wood, throwing axes, or playing bingo, the important thing is to do it with others.
I understand that we need time alone—I lose my temper when I’m writing on a deadline and am disturbed. The same goes for every other emotion; I can go from sad to horny before the sun rises. Just don’t be afraid to share, I know, ‘feels’ and all that. I remember helping a friend through a difficult breakup. I remember him telling me he was suicidal. Sure, it was difficult, and he did some stupid shit, like getting a large tattoo across his back reading “I hate everyone.” But with many late nights and a few hangovers from hell, I helped him heal. He is now married, but I’m not sure what his wife makes of the tattoo! I wish I had the chance to have done this with my dearly departed friend. Pain is temporary; death is permanent.
Suicide might offer the sufferer peace of mind, but it takes away from loved ones valuable time that they could be using to help them—empathy is one of the most highly regarded human virtues. No matter how intolerable, life is always worth living. You are valuable to someone, regardless of who you are. As Charles Bukowski wrote, ‘There may not be much light, but it sure beats the darkness.’ Life is precious. However, with the Sarco, death is met not with the compassionate, loving arms of family and friends but rather with the soulless embrace of a plastic box. Where’s the dignity in that?
So, men, please, go outside and strike up a conversation with a stranger. While I’m ranting, use your mobile phones for something productive, like scrolling through your contacts and calling an old friend. Who knows? It may just save a life.
Where to get help
