I haven't read much about Bourdain's "battles with demons", and I obviously never knew him personally or at all other than the image portrayed in his book(s) and TV work. But as much as one can I grew to love, respect and cherish his presence. I do understand that people choose to end their lives, I was depressed once myself for almost a year. No record. But during that time I did some pretty self-destructive things and even although I thought about suicide during that time it wasn't that serious - mostly conceptual - put it did find it had altered my self-preservation instincts and in the next few years I came close to almost accidentally dying because of it. Many years on I don't have that any more.
However, it bothers me that someone like Bourdain might have been tipped over the edge by drugs he took - prescription or otherwise. I know people and have heard many others talk about taking prescription meds and freaking out over how suicidal it made them very quickly.
Bourdain once wrote something like "I have the best life in the world so if I am not happy it is only because of a spectacular failure of imagination". I wonder if he could be magically brought back to us if he would still stand by that? I would cry if it turns out he was actually happy and it was just some dumb side effect of drugs that brought on a temporary and catastrophic failure of imagination.