A winning essay from our Brighter Future Scholarship contest

I never realized that my uncle struggled with alcohol addiction. As a kid, the signs were always there, from the gentle way my mother spoke about him in comparison to the rest of her siblings, to the subtle withdrawal he took from our family reunions. It was something always present, yet remained unspoken, unverified. There was no single moment when I realized, but eventually, I knew. Somewhere along the line, I’d noticed the tremors had transformed from anxiety-induced to alcohol-induced, and I had differentiated the significance between my aunt’s glass of wine and my uncle’s many beers. 

However, despite knowing his struggles, it was difficult to conceptualize. He didn’t align with my perception of alcoholics. I knew him to be gentle, compassionate, and soft-spoken– Nothing like the rash, violent symptoms I had always envisioned. Thus, I never approached the situation with the urgency it required. 

I was always compared to my uncle. The main source of his struggles stemmed from a life filled with unsupported social anxiety and mental illness. While this later caused severe withdrawal from any social events, including our family gatherings, it began as simple stutters and avoidance of eye contact. I suffered from similar symptoms. I was shy to engage even with familiar individuals and had frequent panic attacks. Thus, I was always encouraged to engage with him, to bond or confide. But he was quiet, stuttering, and unconversational– despite our commonalities, I found him difficult to approach. 

When I was eight, he began bringing his support dog everywhere. Bonding over fetch and tug-of-war quickly became an avenue where we could silently express our love through shared activity. 

We still rarely spoke, despite encouragement from my mom. I’d always thought this exertion was for my benefit, that my mom thought it would help to speak to an adult who “got” me. And I grew, moved away, and was thrust out of my comfort zone, I saw less and less need for this disclosure. 

In my Junior year, my mom pushed one last time, randomly brought up at a family dinner. She’d asked me to talk with my uncle– to share our anxieties. 

I never did. 

A month later, my mom got a call that her brother had died. 

It all seemed so surreal. Although I’d known he suffered from addiction, I never envisioned him as “at risk” in any way. His tremors, slurring, and malnutrition had become so normalized, I never even imagined he was ill, nonetheless that he would die from kidney failure. 

Yet, everyone around me knew. My mom had been trying for years to lure him back into our family sphere with promises of his favorite baked goods and pictures of baby cousins. She had always pushed for us to communicate, not solely for my sake, but for his as well. The grief from this realization hit me hard. 

Between nights spent comforting my mom while she cried in my arms, I found the guilt slowly creeping into my daily routine. I began staying up at night, asking myself what would have happened if I’d reached out, picturing his notebooks filled from rehab as he had desperately tried one last attempt to recover– knowing that it hadn’t worked. Knowing that he had died alone in his apartment. Knowing that his absence had been so normalized, he hadn’t been found for weeks. Knowing that his dog had died along with him. 

Despite the grief I experienced, I eventually began finding closure and comfort in exploring the nuances of addiction and mental illness. I immersed myself in mental health advocacy through prevention organizations and taking mental health first aid courses; I even began volunteering at my local hospital, hoping to reach someone in the way I wish I’d reached my uncle. I refused to allow myself to continue living in regret– There was nothing further I could do for my uncle, but I could still move on to save others. 

My experience with my uncle made me realize that addiction comes in many forms. While my uncle didn’t fit the typical mold of addiction I had conjured, it didn’t mean he wasn’t suffering. I didn’t understand the implications of my uncle’s hardships as a child, but moving forward, I’d like to take the regrets regarding my uncle’s death and what I’ve learned from the experience, and transform it into something meaningful– to carry out his memory in earnest. My uncle’s death became one of the greatest motivators for my future: encouraging me to spend my life aiding others suffering from similar struggles with addiction and overall mental health through psychiatry. Due to the intensity of the medical field, this scholarship would be impactful– acting as a first stepping stone towards my future by investing in my education for course books and other supplies. 

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