It is not black and white.
My dad also was an alcoholic who indirectly killed himself through it and completely wrecked and sabotaged his life when he was alive. I, like Zookeeper and Ginnedupmummy have married someone with a similar type of family dysfunction - as have all of both of our sets of siblings. I don't think it is necessarily that we are attracted to partners who have a drink problem but - as in all apparently inexplicable attractions which lead to lasting relationships it is the foundation that we all have in common -we all grew up in a family that had this type of issue going on. And there is probably a genetic link too.
But it is not necessarily worse than any other issue, as zookeeper and ginnedup say. My DH drinks a few cans of beer at home - every night virtually, I used to hate it, argued about it for several years, I then accepted it. In all these years the drinking hasn't increased, he rarely gets drunk, if he does he just gets silly and then falls asleep on the sofa, he doesn't go to the pub ever (except on a rare night out with me) he doesn't beat me or skip work (and even if ginnedup's did on occasion, who can honestly say they have never skipped work due to a hangover at some point in their lives?). And for all his failings, and the bits I don't like, he is the best and most lovely partner I have ever had and despite my recent moanings about him on here, I rarely come on here and moan about him because I have had enough relationships in the past to realise that he is not perfect but neither am I and he is pretty much everything I want in other respects. My only real concern about the fact he drinks every night is that his liver may pack up one day but what the hell, we all could go at any time.
I don't know anyone (apart from my dad perhaps) who is a bad drinker and should stop drinking and never drink again in the AA type of way, but you only have to listen to the news to know that we are a nation of pretty heavy drinkers and I think that there are worse things. My stepdad raerly touched a drop and it didn't stop him beating the crap out of me. My mum doesn't drink and she has treated me really badly in the past and recently.
It is all to easy to read a post like Ginnedupmummys and conclude "alcoholic" but you can't pigeon hole everyone in that way. If Ginnedup had said that her DH beat her or brought financial ruin upon her I would be the first in line to say that she should get out of it but he is in other respects lovely and that is a lot to be happy about.