I'm not a fan of aa-based recovery either. I don't like the fact that it makes you look to God, and I also don't like the fact that you're always in recovery and you're never okay.
That said, I was a functional alcoholic for 10 years and it got really bad for the last five. I was up to about a half a bottle of rum a day, chasing it with beer or wine. I justified to myself that since I only drank in the evenings "to help me sleep"... That I didn't have a real problem. And even when I knew I had a problem, I didn't know how to get out of it and the guilt and the shame overwhelmed me and made me drink more.
And then I had a friend who helped me reframe it somehow in my brain. Instead of seeing it as a character flaw and a moral deficit, I realized that it was an allergy. That it made me sick, hurt my body, weight gain, joint pain, and all the rest. It took a while maybe a couple weeks before I was able to take the plunge but when I finally made the decision to clean up my act I think only the first couple weeks were the hardest. It was so much easier to see it as a physical issue than a moral or spiritual one.
Now, THAT being said, after a year I had my horrible problem with my ex who tried to kill me.. and that led me to have to do some massive amounts of trauma therapy through this last winter... That was where I really did the deep dive and the digging and healed the wounds which probably were behind much of my drinking. I have been able to apologize to my adult children, and reconcile my childhood trauma with my love for my parents that are now in the afterlife... Very big stuff!
This October will be 2 years clean and sober. And I don't regret a thing nor do I miss it. My body and my brain feel so much better and that was also something that kept me going after the first month I could feel it in my body that I was healing.
It's not an easy road to traverse, and it's certainly not something that many people can do by themselves. But sometimes just reframing the issue and looking at it from a different perspective instead of allowing the shame and guilt to overwhelm you is a bridge to getting to the next steps.
I wish you both so much healing and love. And I pray for your husband's recovery. Let him know that we're pulling for him, and that even if he has broken pieces it doesn't mean that he can't mend himself together again 
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