The suicide rate rises and falls with alcohol consumption, a psychiatrist has said.
Dr John Connolly, chief psychiatrist at St Mary's Hospital, Castlebar, Co Mayo, said higher alcohol consumption had been linked with higher suicide rates in other countries.
In Ireland, where the attitude to drinking was "pretty mad", there had been a sharp rise in drinking and a rise in suicide, he told the annual conference of GROW, the mental health and self-help organisation.
"A number of people I have known would not have committed suicide had they not been drinking," said Dr Connolly, who is secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology. This was because alcohol impaired judgment and increased impulsivity. Young men, he said, were an "endangered species". They were less likely than women to accept they had a serious problem, and less likely to seek help. Young men and men over 65 were the highest risk groups for suicide, and they shared the characteristic of being least listened to in society, he said.
Psychiatrists "continue to play a major part in creating the disastrous current problem of tranquilliser addiction", Dr Terry Lynch, author of Beyond Prozac - Healing Mental Suffering Without Drugs, told the conference.
Studies have found that psychotherapy can be as effective as, or more effective than, medication in the treatment of schizophrenia, "but psychiatry doesn't seem too interested in psycho-social alternatives".
"In my experience of working within the medical profession for 20 years, I believe that medication is by far the most favoured treatment of human distress by doctors," he said. "Only rarely do doctors consider counselling as the first line of treatment."
Mr John Lonergan, governor of Mountjoy Jail, said that "depersonalisation" was "absolutely brutal at the moment".
People flocked in their thousands to shopping centres, and "you could be there for hours and nobody would speak to you unless they are taking your money from you".