I just wanted to share one more story about my first husband. When we met in college, he was 18 and I was 20. We were together for a couple of years till I graduated, and then I moved back to my hometown while he stayed where we had been going to school, about an hour and a half away.
He was an insane drinker from the time I met him. I was drinking a lot, myself, and in college it just seemed like the thing to do. When I graduated, though, and stopped my partying, it became obvious how bad and uncontrollable his drinking had become. I'd beg him not to drink for the weekends we were together, but he'd get off the bus with a bottle of brandy in a paper bag. He wrecked my car, driving drunk without a license, driving into a tree.
A co-worker of mine gave me her copy of AA's Big Book, suggesting that I give it to him to read. I read it, and he read it--we both recognized HIM in the pages. He was reluctant to go to AA, and insisted he wanted to try on his own, first. That didn't work. He agreed to go to one meeting to see what it was about. I went with him (which I don't necessarily recommend), and we both liked the people, and the meeting, but he again wanted to try on his own.
When that effort went south, I said I needed a break from the relationship because I couldn't deal with it any more. I said three months, and we'll see where we are at.
During that time, he went to AA ON HIS OWN, and quit drinking. He was 21 years old. He's still involved with AA, never picked up another drink, and just celebrated 37 years of sobriety.
So there ARE success stories. We eventually divorced, for reasons that had nothing to do with his alcoholism, and we are good friends to this day. He was a terrific husband, and a great dad to our kids. And when my own alcoholism materialized much later in life, he was a role model and a support for me when I recovered.
Of course, not every story has a happy ending. My second husband went back to drinking after almost dying of alcohol-related causes, and I eventually had to leave. As far as I know, he's still drinking himself to death, and it's been 20 years.