No.

He has a disease that tells him he doesn't.

Thank God that Cary is right about alcoholics getting left. Otherwise, many more would die than already do. Sometimes it's the first thing that lets them know there really is a problem.

Boy, have I been there, done that. Someone very close to me was an alcoholic. Things won't change. You'll wait for years, and things won't change.

From what it sounds like, this is only just getting started. It will be years before this ends.

How will it end? Well, the LW's husband will end up dieing an early alcohol related (note that I said "related") death, or the LW will get so fed up that she leaves after years of waiting for her husband to change.

He won't change.

My pakistani friend one told me of a saying in his country:

"If someone tells you that a mountain has moved, belive it! But if someone tells you that a man has changed, DON'T believe it!"

Addicts don't change until THEY're ready to. You will eventually just reach a point where you don't care anymore. Then you'll know it's time to go. The sad thing is, you will waste many years of your life.

My father was an alcoholic for most of his life. His increasingly uncaring attitude toward my brother and me caused us so much soul-searing grief -- why does he not love us? what did we do wrong? what can we do differently to reach him? -- that you would be doing your 19-year-old son a favor by showing him in no uncertain terms how to behave toward an alcoholic. You don't need to be nasty, just firm in that his behavior toward you and others is the sign of a problem, and until he deals with that problem and treats those who love him with the care and attention they deserve, you're out for your own good. If he chooses to kill himself rather than change the thing that's come between you, that's his own, messed-up choice. Cary's right: He's holding you hostage with his threats. He has no right to cripple the lives and hurt the feelings of those around him so he can keep "having fun." If that's his idea of fun, let him pursue it without the ties that bind. Create a different idea of family without his needless drama in it. You'll be amazed how much creative energy you'll have to pursue your own dreams when you stop pouring all of it into dealing with him.

Can you get ahold of his gun(s) and ammo while he is away in a bar, some night? And throw that stuff away, in a dumpster far from where you live? Or... if some of his guns are valuable family heirlooms (his grandpa's Italian shotgun or some such), then take them to a reasonable member of his family?

Please do this on the day you leave, before you leave. If he is a cop or somebody else who carries a pistol every day, maybe you cannot do this. But that gun is dangerous for him and for you. It will be particularly dangerous on the day you leave, even more dangerous if he is drunk on that day.

Probably, you should plan to leave at a time when he is not drunk. Avoid the hot, emotional, drunken situation. Good luck.

LW, I imagine you must have already confronted your husband about his alcoholism. Plainly. Not by insinuation, not by wringing your hands, but by plainly and bluntly acknowledging that he is drinking way too much and you are well aware and his behavior is unacceptable.

I suffer from alcoholism. I was a miserable drinker, though. Drinking to hide the pain of all the confusing and dreary things that were going on in my life. One day as my live-in boyfriend of 10 years and I were on our way out the door, I said, "Go ahead, go start the car, I'll be right there," as I always did, so I could grab a slug of vodka from the big bottle in the pantry before we left the house, and instead of going out to the car he quietly sat in the living room after shutting the front door, and as I emerged from the kitchen he confronted to me.

I was beyond humiliated. And that was my breaking point. I knew right then and there that if I didn't stop drinking, he was going to leave me. I'm still not drinking today and attribute that to that moment of dire shame.

I'm not saying that your husband will have a realization such as that, but give him the chance, at least. I just don't buy that he thinks there's nothing wrong with his drinking. He knows it's wrong. Alcoholics feel like shit and experience a lot of depression and lethargy that comes from the alcohol itself as well as all the trouble and confusion and lost time it creates. Alcoholism is a sad, sad thing, and your husband is threatening you with emotional blackmail. I've done that too. I threatened to kill myself, to slit my wrists open with our sharpest Japanese fish boning knife and have succeeded in downing narcartics and barbiturates with alcohol in a flimsy attempt to end my life. It's not a pretty sight, and I never would have gone in for such hysterical dramatics had I not been drunk.

Good luck. I pray for you and your husband, whoever and wherever you are.

or guns and the ammo. And I mean get rid of them entirely. Don't just hide them in the house or in your car. Don't confront him about them. Don't discuss getting rid of them. When he is playing golf, get the weapons out of the house, dump them in the river or bury them in the woods. Dispose of them permanently somewhere he will never think to look. Yes, he can buy another gun, but he has to be sober to do that. If he has access to weapons when he decides to kill himself or when he's enraged that you want to leave, he may kill you and your children. Don't give him that chance. Get rid of the gun. NOW.

Then see a lawyer about filing for divorce.