Thanks for all the input & perspectives. I am so new to this.
Though he didn't voice it before, he had already realized he has a problem and that it is affecting his health and sleep (which affects his ability to make a living) and was concerned. He had already made a switch from beer to hard liquor because of the specific effects of beer drinking, and because he was regularly going past his self-assigned limit. He's recently done some "test runs" of skipping a night (I didn't know!) or drinking less, and felt better... but also realized he hadn't been able to stay with one or two drinks more than two or three days. He'd even had a long talk with my xh when we were there for the holidays--not all specifically about alcohol, but about being men growing older, health issues, and wives who get fed up with the BS and leave if you're a stubborn ol' cuss.
No offense meant to any who believe otherwise, but I feel I was blessed to see the problem and choose to speak up at the right time ~ when he was prepared to hear and accept what I was saying. He had already realized there was a problem and was making stabs at doing things differently. (Just had a random mental visual of "the elephant in the room" and that saying about "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
) He had his knife, I just came in with a fork and some support.
PohsFriend, I really don't see alcoholism as a character flaw or badness about a person. We have a strong alcohol addiction history in my family, just as my husband does. And I certainly have my own train-load of issues, even if drinking every day isn't one of them. With both of us being previously married, we went into this relationship understanding that both came with baggage & problems, and have tried to maintain a very respectful and caring atmosphere--being wary of codependency and other relationship killers.
One of the most distressing parts of our discussion was that he had absolutely no recall of complaining about our doctor talking to him about the drinking, which is the thing that really got my attention about this. His memory has been crap the last year. He did remember the doctor being concerned about his heart though ~ and asked what I knew about the relationship between alcohol and heart problems. (I'll have to read up on that--I was worried about his brain and liver.)