My experience dealing with alcoholism and recovery for a bit over 20 years.... your spot being progressive.

At this moment I am pretty much doing the same your husband and I as well have degenerative disk disease in my lower back and there are times the pain can be excruciating however in my case, alcohol does nothing for the pain. I take other meds for that which is an addiction within itself and I am tapering off the drug, doctor supervised. So... I have it all, the back, alcoholism, drinking every night, going to work the next day.... high functioning alcoholic! The only reason I am not drinking tonight is I haven’t felt great today and the cause of that is more than likely some other issue I was just diagnosed with, heart failure.

AA says no one can diagnose him but himself. I have been in and out of AA for over twenty years and there are so many other options for recovery I am in no way saying AA is the answer. I am exploring other options myself...... obviously AA has not kept me sober and there are those that say it is because I didn’t work the program or one of many other reasons that I haven’t stayed sober. I can say that if I did what AA suggested day in and day out I know I would feel pretty good however unfortunately for me I am one that just can’t do what is suggested day I and day out. Some people can, I have many friends that have been sober 20-30 years. So that’s my qualifications.

I would check those links out in the above post. Perhaps look for an Al-Anon meeting, if he is alcoholic and can’t or won’t stop drinking you are going to have a mess on your hands. You already recognize the progression....... that’s exactly what alcoholism is, a progressive disease. Aside from the links, the more you educate yourself, the better you will be able to make your decisions moving forward for you..... you’re not a terrible person, it is not by any means selfish of you to take care of you first. That is another symptom of alcoholism, those around us enable us and feel like they play a role in the drinking somehow or think there is something wrong with them. Please by no means take what I have said as me telling you what you should do, only you know that, I’m just giving my experience.