In the summer of 1983 I quit my full time day job at a butcher shop and night time guitar player in a band job and went back to school. I started selling coke to replace my day job steady income. When I started I was a casual user. In six months I was a full blown needle shooting coke head junkie taking chances with my life on a daily. After a close call with the law I quit cold turkey. I quit in 1983 and never relapsed, ever. I was an addict that got clean and stayed clean.
In my teen years my Father had a run of bad times and started drinking heavily and taking the socially accepted drug of the 70s for people with stressful lives/jobs, Valium. He became addicted to both, was given an ultimatum and quit cold turkey and never relapsed. He was sober until the day he died. He was an addict that got clean and stayed clean.
My late ex wife started drinking heavily at an early age and had quite the relationship with alcohol. She was an addict. She was both ashamed and embarrassed about her addiction. She hated it. She tried to control it, she tried to quit, she knew how many lives were hurting because of her addiction but she could not stop. Her addiction was terminal.
From my experience there are as many different types of addicts as there are people AND, once you realize an addiction has gotten a grip on you, you know exactly what's going on. Now admitting it to others around you is another issue all together. Sure as the sun will rise tomorrow your husband knows exactly what's going on. And he has a choice every day, to either continue his addiction or reach out for help. He makes that choice EVERY DAY.