Secrets Kept Him Sick

I loved my brother in law Manuel. 💔

Manuel was born June 10, 1960 and passed away in July of 2012 at only 52 years old.

We would sit and talk for hours.
At the time, I thought we simply had a deep connection and amazing conversations.

Now I realize… most of those long talks only happened when he was drinking.

He would be drunk and we would talk for hours.
And back then, I did not fully understand alcoholism the way I do today.

I did not understand the loneliness underneath it.
The pain underneath it.
The escape underneath it.
The disease underneath it.

Nobody ever truly talked about the disease.
Nobody called it alcoholism.
Nobody confronted it directly.

They would say things like:
“He’s diabetic.”
“He’s on dialysis.”
“He’s sick.”

But underneath it was alcoholism. 🍺

His wife would cry to the family about his drinking, his behavior, the chaos, and the pain. But people did not want to get involved. I listened. I heard her. 

A house was provided.
Excuses were made.
Silence was kept.
The disease quietly progressed.

They would say things like:
“Please don’t tell us.”
“Stop complaining to us.”
“We don’t want to hear it.”

So instead of confronting the alcoholism…
they avoided it.

Instead of addressing the pain…
they silenced the people crying for help.

And the disease kept progressing quietly behind closed doors. 💔

That is what alcoholism does in families.
It creates denial.
Secrecy.
Fear.
Image protection.
Enabling.
Avoidance.

People become more comfortable managing the discomfort around the alcoholic than actually addressing the alcoholism itself.

And eventually… it killed him.

That awakened something painful inside me because I lived something similar with my own son and his grandfather… the same man who enabled his Uncle Manuel.

Grandpa rescued him constantly.
Built him a studio.
Protected him.
Softened consequences.

And at first it looked like love.
It looked like helping.
It looked compassionate.

But alcoholism does not get better through rescuing. 💔

The more consequences were softened, the more comfortable the disease became.

Jobs came and went.
Relationships failed.
Drinking progressed.
Isolation increased.

And every time I tried to speak up about what I was seeing to my husband, I looked like the problem instead of the disease itself.

I was the “mean” mother.
The “harsh” one.
The “abandoning” one. Just "stay quiet" 

 I was told to keep quiet or Grandpa would not help him.

So I stayed quiet longer than I should have because I was scared my son would lose support completely. But deep inside, I knew rescuing him was not helping him heal.

He needed tough love.
He needed consequences.
He needed to feel the pain of where alcoholism was taking him.

He needed to hit his bottom.

And thank God he did. 🙏

Because that bottom became the very thing that helped save his life.

People thought I was being cruel when in reality I was terrified. I knew where alcoholism leads because I watched it destroy my family for generations.

I recognized the pattern.
I recognized the enabling.
I recognized the silence.

And I knew exactly where that road could lead. ⚠️

That silence almost cost my son his life.

Alcoholism grows in secrecy.
It grows in minimizing.
It grows in enabling.
It grows when families protect the image more than the person.

But thank God my son got sober. 🙏 Today he has about 11 months. 

Today he has a chance at life.
A real chance.

And I truly believe if he would have stayed isolated in that garage studio, protected from consequences and surrounded by rescuing, he may have died just like Uncle Manuel maybe even younger. 

That realization shook me deeply today.

Real love is not always soft.
Real love sometimes says NO.
Real love sets boundaries.
Real love allows discomfort.
Real love stops participating in destruction.

Love is not helping someone slowly die while calling it kindness.

And if you have ever had to be the one who stopped enabling, you know how painful it is because sometimes the person telling the truth becomes the villain in the family. ⚠️

Not because they are wrong…
but because truth disrupts denial.

I would rather have my son angry and alive…
than comfortable and dead.

Alcoholism is progressive.
It does not get better untreated.

Secrets keep families sick. And this is a FAMILY illness. The enablers and rescuers are even WORSE in my opinion. They need help, too. 

#Recovery #AlcoholismAwareness #HealingFamilies #CodependencyRecovery #TheHealingChef