Well, if this helps, I can share my experience. My husband did not understand alcoholism when I quit. And, he probably still doesn't understand it even now.
Although he was miserable with me by the time I quit, I'm not sure if he identified my basic problem as alcoholism. I think he may have blamed my problems on unemployment, isolation, 50 year crisis, etc, etc.
We were major drinking buddies. And our pattern was very sick. We would drink a lot together on weekends and argue at the dinner table, very frequently. He was a heavy drinker by anyone's standards on weekends. By the time I quit, we could easily consume 1 or 3 cocktails before dinner, drink one bottle of wine (each) at dinner, and then drink 1 to 3 whiskeys after dinner.
In retrospect, I think my heavy drinking ultimately affected his consumption.
The good news is that although it took a long time, he no longer shows any interest in seeing me drink again and his drinking has gone WAAAAAAAY down!
And we have not argued at the dinner table one single time since I quit.