This is a psychiatric emergency. The man satisfies several validated suicide risk markers - he is male, divorced (no spouse, poor social support), an alcohol user, and clinically depressed, and he is now expressing passive suicidal ideation.
When a depressed patient with stacked risk factors openly questions the point of living, the clinician must treat this as imminent self-harm risk. The single most important first action is to remove the patient from a setting where they could harm themselves and place them under observation, i.e. admit them.
Pharmacotherapy with antidepressants and structured psychotherapy such as CBT form the backbone of long-term recovery, but both have a delayed onset and cannot protect the patient over the next hours. Telling him this is a "normal part of life" ignores a treatable, potentially fatal illness. Therefore, after ensuring immediate safety through admission, definitive treatment is layered on.
\[\boxed{\textbf{Hospitalize the patient}}\]