There's a moment of silence at the beginning of every AA meeting all over the world for those still suffering in and out of the rooms. When I started getting sober a very VERY dear friend killed herself deliberately because she'd lost all hope; another who sat right beside me in meetings accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills and vodka: She just wanted to have one more. Another died of causes brought about by drinking (though he'd been sober 27 years), and yet another went to prison. All within my first year of sobriety.
My brother is dying from this disease. He's dissolving from the inside out. Enlarged heart, intestinal scarring, liver damage, bleeding ulcers, you name it. He's said he will NEVER go to AA and will, "take matters into his own hands," if he gets really bad. 'Really bad,' seems to be a sliding scale, though, and every bottom has a basement... More than likely if he doesn't kill himself falling, he'll wind up with a wet brain and a ward of the state.
I heard in the rooms that, "Some of us must die that others may live." I also learned that, if I were going to stay sober, I was going to have to, "step over the bodies."
Dying never was the problem for me, either. Living, on the other hand, scared me senseless... I had no tools.