Timberlawn is now the shuttered Dallas sanitarium where my father was treated for alcoholism in the 1950s. They called it "The Human Salvage Factory," a place where lives torn apart by addiction were sent to be repaired. For our family, Timberlawn was a last-ditch effort to reclaim a man who was slipping away, consumed by a disease we barely understood. But the path to recovery wasn’t simple. And it wasn’t linear.
Dad was admitted for six weeks of intensive treatment, an attempt to confront the demons that had taken over his life. He played the part well, convincing doctors with a performance of progress and cooperation. But behind that mask, he was counting the days until his release. He knew the right things to say, how to appear sincere, all while planning his escape from treatment’s grasp. Timberlawn, to him, was just an obstacle to endure, not a place for real healing.
When Dad was committed and placed in a straitjacket, it felt like the walls around our family’s secrets were closing in. My mother and grandmother whispered on the back porch, their voices thick with fear and shame. I can still see Dad in his pajamas, slippers, and robe, smoking a cigarette, a distant figure in therapy sessions. He created plaster of paris artwork and colorful beaded bracelets – symbols of false compliance, quiet defiance. The treatments—Antabuse, electroshock therapy, psychotherapy – were battles in a war he seemed determined to lose.
He walked out of Timberlawn not reborn but as a shadow of the man he once was, his demons more entrenched. Timberlawn didn’t save him, and in truth, it didn’t save us. Addiction and silence lingered in our home long after he returned.
Sometimes, healing begins in the darkest places, though not in the way we expect. Timberlawn wasn’t my father’s redemption. It was a harsh reckoning, revealing that the real battle was one we couldn’t win for him. Timberlawn exposed the cracks in our family, forcing us to face the shame and silence we had long tried to hide.
In my memoir, Shadows of Sobriety: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Healing a Family Legacy, I explore the deep scars my father’s alcoholism left on our family and how faith, forgiveness, and resilience shaped my own path to healing. Timberlawn was just one chapter in a larger story – one of broken bonds, hidden wounds, and the redemptive power of grace.
Healing didn’t arrive as I had imagined. It came slowly, through years of wrestling with grief, forgiving my father and myself, and learning that redemption is often for the ones who survive, not the ones we lose.
Writing this memoir was my way of shining light on the pain of addiction and the hope for healing – even when it feels unreachable. Because sometimes, in the darkest places, is where the first glimmer of healing appears.
