BC,
I married two alcoholics. The first one got sober a year before we got married, and thirty years later, he is still sober and healthy and a good friend of mine.
The second one I married during a "hiatus" in drinking. He was going to meetings for awhile but quickly relapsed, lost his job, all of this after spending two weeks in a coma from acute alcohol withdrawal. He had liver failure and no health insurance. I had to leave him for my own sake. As far as I know he is still drinking himself to death.
Now, here's something interesting. When the FIRST husband (the one still sober) was still drinking, I finally got fed up with it. I'd encouraged him to go to ONE AA meeting, and he went, thought the people were nice, but, eh, not for him. He kept drinking. I finally told him I needed a break from our relationship. I said I could not and would not live with the drinking anymore.
So I quit seeing him for a couple of months.
In that time, he went, ON HIS OWN, to AA, got serious about his recovery, got a sponsor, worked the steps. We started seeing each other again, and I took a chance by marrying him, but it DID work out. Our later divorce had nothing to do with alcoholism, except that his very excellent recovery made it possible for us to divorce with very little rancor, and, as I said, we are dear friends to this day.
IOW, yes, it sometimes can work out. But if I hadn't stepped away from the relationship, I think it might have taken a lot longer. Because I wouldn't have been able to do anything to help, and I probably would have either nagged and caused more resentment or else continued to be so "helpful" he wouldn't have been motivated to do anything about his drinking. I can't claim to have "caused" him to choose recovery, but I removed some of the props that were making it easy for him to keep drinking.
So it COULD be that your stepping away from the relationship IS the best thing you could do to help him.
Please keep an open mind. I think many alcoholics are very cool people underneath the disease (heck, maybe I'm biased because I'm in AA myself, now), but early sobriety is kinda fragile, and best handled by the recovering person and those who are on the same path.