I agree that it's up to him to define himself. If HE identifies as an alcoholic, he is.
It sounds like you might be taking some assumptions as fact - how do you KNOW
"He was married for 10 years and might have had 5 beers the whole time."? Were you standing right there? 24/7 for 10 years?
How do you KNOW he felt like this:
"After she left him he didn't think highly of himself and had his dad in his ear telling him he "has the bug, be careful". Which I don't think was good!! So he took the attitude of, "F-it, I have the bug so here I go". " Even if this is true..... so what? Addiction is a mental war for sure, but physical dependency can lead to mental dependency too. It doesn't matter where he started out, it matters where he ended up. I'm starting to question how much of my RAH's issues are rooted in untreated ADHD after lots of reading - but even if he gets this diagnosis it won't erase his addiction. He can never go back in time & NOT be an alcoholic at this point. No matter what.
These aren't facts. In your own words, this is what YOU see. I didn't see the picture accurately when I tried to view my RAH this way either, because I was never inside his head. All the things I thought made sense based on what I knew were still incomplete guesses - not facts.
My RAH maintained sobriety easily during happy times too, for a long, long time. But when things got challenging & then downright hard he couldn't sustain it & while he stressed, he spiraled quickly.
That is why I say what I say about him not really being an alcoholic, but just a person who needs help getting past bad feelings about themself.
This is true of EVERY alcoholic I have ever known; drinking to bury discomfort/emotions in some way. It definitely applies to my RAH and it doesn't stop him from identifying as an alcoholic in any way.