Glad you posted this Dee.
Similar experience (as your uncle) with my father. He came back a drunk, from WWII, and got worse and worse in the post-war years until his death (aged only 62) in the early 1980s.
I did quite a lot of fairly recent investigation on both his war service (all in New Britain / New Guinea in the last phase of the war..) and even paid to get his Dept of Veteran's Affairs / rehab medical history. All 400 pages of it, dating from just before my birth in 1955 through to his death.
Among other aspects, it was awful to see in those pages the years-long battle (unsuccessful) to have his poor health including TB recognised as due to war service. in order to get a full version of the pension. Hence, we lived with very little money when I was a child; as I grew, his drinking grew much worse, so Mum had to go out to work full time (unusual in the 60s).
On the alcoholic aspect: I was astounded to see in my reading of all his medical reports over those decades (nearly 40 years) that either he managed to fudge his drinking (lie) and / or that it was not as well recognised by most GPs or even staff in the rehab hospitals for veterans. Incredible!
And of course there was little in the way of even stuff like AA in Australia - even in Sydney, a big capital city - back then. And certainly no dedicated addiction services of any kind.
this has often made me wonder how many of our Diggers, from all the wars - except for the Vietnam vets, whose addiction and PTSD type problems slowly / belately became recognised - suffered, along with their families, with rampant depression, alcoholism, etc.
And of course, that's not including the almost 100% smoking during the wars and after! Dad's death certificate actually listed cause of death as respiratory failure, and I knew he'd been on the list just a few years before for a partial leg amputation due to pulmonary blockages. Ironic. He ostensibly died from the fags....but unspoken, unlisted as such, I know, also untreated chronic alcoholism.
Damned sad.