Destigmatizing suicide could help those in need: mental health advocate “People who are in early recovery or even in long term recovery may have been depending on mutual support organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous,” said addiction specialist James MacKillop.“Those organizations really provide support via fellowship in person and obviously are no longer available in the same way during the pandemic.”MacKillop said 12-step groups and more traditional forms of therapy have done their best to be there virtually — but there’s no doubt for many people the pandemic made a hard life that much harder as basic survival took precedence.There has been, however, an unexpected silver lining to COVID-19, he said.“There’s a group of people who are.