Ladies,
I really appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post. I'm so glad I found this site. I could not have imagined so many people would chime in-- I went from having spoke with no one about this to speaking with several people with lots of experience.
.....And my response will likely seem stubborn.
I have no intentions of leaving him. Taking into consideration all the positives, I just couldn't do that. My life would truly be worse without him. That is not negative self talk-- he has pushed me to be successful in school and life. I am on the verge of breaking out of the sad cycle of poverty that neither my parents nor my 3 siblings have been able to break out of, and I owe a lot of it to his life skills, patience and love.
Eight Ball, thanks for responding. I think my BF may have a lot in common with your husband. The denial factor is huuuuuuge. I could actually see my bf saying something like "alcoholism is a word people use to sell books."
He's also definitely done the whole "if you'd have something to drink, you'd lighten up, thing." (This is actually quite true, if I have 2 glasses of wine I am a lot less likely to bug him about drinking). He doesn't really do that anymore, though, as I've pointed out that him bringing more alcohol not only into my life, but into my body is actually quite bad.
That being said, I am going to try everything I can to reach him before there are any children in the picture. At least then, I'll know I tried. If I left him now...I would always wonder. And if I checked back years later and found that he'd stopped drinking I would, of course, be happy for him but I'd also be heartbroken that I hadn't been a part of that. And if when I'm old and my boobs are down to my knees, he has lived without suffering any slow, deteriorating illness, I'll know I tortured myself by leaving him without any good reason. And on the other side of that, if I left and he shacks up with some enabling alcoholic chick, I'll wonder if I could have at least prevented things from getting worse...