"They were all the classic symptoms, but I had never even heard of depression," says Hipple. "It was normal to me. It was what I went through. I didn't catch it. I'd tell him, 'Tough it out, Jeff. You'll get past it.' I could tell in the morning he had been crying, and I'd say, 'Come on, get to school; things will be better.' It was what I knew. I did all those things. I used to dodge school. I'd put a thermometer on the heater to make it look like I had a temperature."

In April 2000, Hipple was out of town on business when he received the phone call informing him that Jeff had taken his life.

"I had tremendous guilt," says Eric. "Why didn't I see it?"

After Jeff was buried, Hipple began a free fall into self-destruction. "I gave up," he recalls. "I didn't care if I lived or died."

He turned to alcohol and considered suicide. He was arrested for DUI in Oakland, Calif., and was sent to jail for two to three days at a time for failing to follow a court-ordered probationary program. Finally, out of exasperation, the judge gave him a 58-day jail sentence.

"I was happy when they put me in jail," he says. "No one could bother me. I could shut out the world. They misunderstood the problem. They didn't recognize it was a mental health issue, and they didn't understand that I didn't care what they did to me."

Halfway through his jail stay, Hipple realized two things: He didn't want to be behind bars anymore, and he wanted to know why Jeff died and why this was happening to him. In 2002, he enrolled in an eight-week program in the depression clinic at the University of Michigan to get answers. He learned about depression and realized it had been the source of so many of his own problems as well as Jeff's over the years.

"I went there to learn," he says. "It was eye-opening. Everything fell into place. It explained my own behavior and my family's. I could see why I got divorced from Jann and how it was for her to put up with someone who was living on the edge. ... It probably helped cause my divorce."

The experience led to Hipple's treatment for depression. He also became such an advocate for recognizing and treating depression that six years ago the University of Michigan created a position for him to lead its outreach programs. He speaks to military groups, schools, community organizations, bar associations, dental associations and other professional groups. In recent weeks he has spoken in Florida, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, often giving two or three lectures in a single day on the road, as well as doing TV and radio interviews.