cp85rn and welcome to SR,
You have come to the right place, many of us have gone through what your going through and can empathize.
There will be lots of SR people coming along soon to welcome you. When I first arrived on SR, I was very much like you and knew very little about alcoholism or problem drinkers.
I met my husband at 15 yrs old - we are now 45 yrs old and have been married for almost 23 yrs. Of course we used to drink a lot as teenagers but i grew out of it when I had my daughters and only drank on social occasions. My husband continued to drink. In the UK where we come from originally, we have the local pub culture and my AH would visit his 'local' 3-4 nights a week and drink at home in-between. When we came to Australia he got himself a beer fridge which is an iconic Australian thing to have. Now he drinks at home every night. Its taken me about 21 yrs to get sick of it and realise that he has a problem and cant stop. I know this because I begged, pleading, chastised him, stopped speaking to him, cried, shouted and gave him ultimatums but nothing worked.
All that happened was his drinking made me ill. I was coming in from work, and looking inside his beer fridge to see how many bottles were gone or how many more were replaced. I kept a spreadsheet of his beer purchases to see how much he was spending. My life had become one big beer police lifestyle and just made me feel stressed and sick in the stomach. He didn't change at all!
I found Al-anon and learnt that I had to focus on myself and 'detach' ignore his drinking and behaviors. I had to do that for my own sanity because I felt totally out of control.
Keep reading the stickies above and come back often and read and re-read what people respond to you on your thread with because it all takes a while to sink in. You and on a steep learning curve now but there is peace waiting for you.