My husband is a functioning alcoholic

This is going to be long. I’ve known for a long time. I always knew he drank socially a lot when we were dating but it never clicked that he had an actual problem until after we got married. We have fought about it so much. He’s promised to quit and then a day later he’s drinking again. And he has endless excuses for why he does it and won’t get help. Then he’ll go a stretch of a few months where he seems to be doing better...that’s when we tried and got pregnant. I never would have otherwise.

Now here I am with a 5 week old baby boy...born 7 weeks premature and it still hasn’t been enough to snap him into gear to quit. Two days ago, after he got hammered at our house the night before and tried to feed the baby a bottle (our baby still has trouble swallowing and breathing so needs a lot of help eating), he promised me the next morning that he was done and calling to get help. That afternoon, I went to the bank and saw his truck parked at the bar across the street where all the guys from work go. I wanted to go in and scream at him but instead just went home to see how long he’d stay. 3 hours later it was time for us to go to his niece’s birthday party so I called him. He was still drinking. I hung up and proceeded to load up the car and get the baby ready. He showed up as I was getting ready to head out the door...completely wasted at 5:00 and drove himself home. I told him I was done. That I’ll be calling an attorney on Monday and will be providing proof of his alcoholism and asking the judge to require that he complete treatment before he can see our son by himself. And then I left. It would be so easy to leave him because we have two houses...his before marriage and mine before marriage. It’s all a lie though. I won’t really leave. I’m too scared and I love him too much. He blew up my phone apologizing while I was at the party. And one of his sisters went to our house to talk to him (they all know he’s an alcoholic). I have no idea how that went, but I would imagine he had all the same excuses and blamed me for most of it. He was passed out when I got home. Went to work in the morning and then came home and slept some more. He has since been acting like nothing ever happened. Hasn’t said a word about it and I haven’t either. I haven’t even talked to him and don’t want to. He reached out to give me a hug yesterday and I pulled away. Now I don’t know what to do.

If by some chance you’ve read this far..thank you for letting me vent. I’ve never had that chance because I’m too embarrassed. This was just one day...there are countless others.

Edit: I didn’t post this so a bunch of people could encourage me to leave my husband. Of course I love my baby with all my heart. But when you’re with an addict you know their choices are controlled by their addiction. But you love the person they are when they’re sober. And you want to be there to support them and believe wholeheartedly that they are going to get help. You also know that leaving them to deal with the addiction alone could cause a downhill spiral that kills them. So while it’s torture to stay, in some ways it might be the lesser of two evils