Hi trailmix, thank you for the kind words and perspective.
I am not sure what came first; looking back he always liked to drink and it was heavy but not out of control yet. It was when his mother passed suddenly 20 years ago that he started to have bouts of depression, so that might have accelerated the drinking too. And then the first time it was truly debilitating was 10 years ago, on/off and me always searching for signs, looking for hidden alcohol, questioning if he was really sick or binging (usually the latter). And us in our house, all day every day pretty much since March 2020, just made matters worse I now realize. It may have ended up like that if we had stayed in the city, since he would have left his job in that situation too, but it was the isolation and lack of social life that just made everything worse, but slowly over the years until it was too broken to fix.
One thing I have to note, he has been sober since he was brought to the hospital on 12/26, and he is back in AA. So while that’s good for him, his behavior towards me is more awful than ever. But I have to keep reminding me of what you rightly stated: he is a different person now, still struggling to stay sober and dealing with even more mental health challenges.