gbz,
I am so sorry to hear of your sadness and pain. I know how you feel as I was once there with my beloved A on more than one occasion.
There is nothing harder than watching a loved one in distress but just as the caterpillar must break out of the cocoon on its own your A must battle his way out of the dead end of addiction and you can best help him by getting well yourself.
If you pursue your own recovery you can be the strong light and salt ... love and wisdom without smothering or controlling. If you try to break open the cocoon and help the butterfly it kills it because it needs the struggle to survive.
Sadly, this is true for the alcoholic. There is no "quick fix" and no pill or magic wand. It is a physical, mental and spiritual journey of self discovery and recovery ... few find path and diligently work hard to become the person their HP created them to be.
Your A can make it. I know because I am married to one of what used to be one of the worst alcoholics I have ever met and I have met thousands and thousands in the past 30 years in my profession and am qualified to judge!
I need to write our story because it is so crazy that people will think it is fiction... that no one is that bad of a hopeless alcoholic and no one is as crazy as I was a codie, controlling wife with a messiah complex.
When I finally let go... really let go and let God I was SURE that I would next see him in a casket. It was very, very likely. Instead within hours he was detoxing in a jail cell and his journey OUT of the darkness began and I stayed absent. No contact. God went to work and long story short 6 weeks later there was a night journey of the soul and my A fully surrendered and the miracle happened.
It has been 6 months now and we still live in seperate residences and even seperate cities! We are closer than ever and I am so very proud of him for his hard work that he does everyday to grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. This was a man who was a walking dead man and now he is an amazing, beautiful, loving, selfless human being.
However, I willingly live with the knowledge that at anytime it could come apart at the seams and he will be back to the brink of death if he takes a sip of alcohol. He doesn't even drink a sip of wine at communion or alcohol in his mouthwash!
Being in love with him is a risk I am willing to take because I am STRONG in my recovery and he does not belong to me... he belongs to God as I do and I have learned to live in the moment and accept that life is uncertain.
So... my advice is we can't rescue anyone but we can be a light when others see the change in us as we grow stronger in our own recovery. That is where you will find your strength, your serenity and most of all your hope. With God nothing is impossible but he does not violate free will and unless your A truly cries out for help and breaks up with alcohol the miracle will not come.
It cannot if he does not want it... this is the sad, sad part of loving an A.