WOES, I know this is your post about your journey, but I wanted to take a moment to tip my hat to your husband.
I too came around after your early years, but not so much later that HT wasn't still around more. I always gravitated to his posts not just becuase of his clarity and charmingly "salty" style, but because of his candor about the sobriety party of his story. I too am a sober alcoholic, I know what that first year was like. That he, when broken down to his lowest, looked to the deepest part of himself and began his own journey of change, starting to walk his own road of healing and reconstruction in sobriety--that is heroism.
I've said here before, some of my favorite people, the people I most love and respect, are people who have betrayed themselves or others, whether through infidelity, addiction, or what have you, and done the hard work to rebuild themselves, seek amends, and seek to help others. They have a gentleness and sternness both, a sense of empathy and a sense of humility I find very compelling.
I think you are both such people and I wish you and HT all the best.