Hi craven
I am an alcoholic. I am getting a lot of support from lots of different people on SB, both alcoholics and here on this side of the fence too. I am not here to defend your BF or even alcoholics in general.
There has already been some good, sound, logical advice from other contributors on this thread. My first point is that alcohol dulls the logical side of the brain (and most alcoholics I know use it for precisely that purpose). So no amount of reasoning is ever going to get him to change his behaviour. I cannot tell you the number of times I have thought to myself "why is it that everyone else seems to have a view on my alcohol consumption except me - I am perfectly content with the way I use alcohol".
Now herein lies the rub IMO. All alcoholics use alcohol for various different reasons but essentially there is a common factor. They all have an empty void (probably been there since early childhood because there was some part of them that wasn't sufficiently nurtured by one or other parent). Now alcohol does a FANTASTIC job of dulling the pain of that empty void (at least it does initially anyway). So this is why we self-medicate. However, it never resolves the underlying problem and, until we are prepared to face it front on (either by filling the void spiritually or by coming to accept ourselves for what we are including the good with the bad) we simply are not going to tackle our problem of alcohol abuse.
Naive is quite right when she says that alcoholism is progressive. Believe me, if your BF has not even reached the stage where he thinks he has a problem, then he has a hell of a long way ahead of him before he is even likely to want to start to change. She is also correct about the quantities involved. The human body is miraculous at filtering out toxins and you need to increase the amount indefinitely to get the same effect as before. I have been drinking alcohol for about 12 years, starting on a bottle of wine a day and eventually reaching 50 units a day or so. I could easily cruise 2 litres of wine without it touching the sides and then hit the vodka in an attempt to "bend the edges". BTW there are very good reasons why alcoholics use vodka too - primarily because it doesn't smell on one's breath nearly as much as other alcohols (so your BF may well already have progressed quite a long way just by his choice)
I disagree with the idea that alcoholics first love is alcohol and that they place it above their significant others. Instead, I think the prospect of exposing their empty void is so profoundly scary that they would rather do anything to protect the inner self including hurting their loved ones. This is all done at a relatively subconscious level and I am not implying that they deliberately intend to hurt anyone. I have never once EVER been violent to anyone but I do know that my self indulgence has broken lots of trust. We are amazingly selfish people - we think mainly about ourselves and oftentimes our partners become codependent (obsessing about us instead of taking care of themselves)
So I recommend you dont try to get him to change. It will never work. He will only change when he (eventually) recognises that alcohol is never going to be the solution but merely a way of postponing painful realisations. This state of "limbo" is constant - trying to put off decisions. Believe me, alcoholics are not living on the same timeframe as everyone else. We are stuck in limbo and we simply do not recognise when our loved ones around us are moving forward without us.
One final thing. We are not bad people per se. It is alcohol itself which is the demon. There are a load of people over on the other side of the forum trying their damdest to get straight and clean.