pleasehelpme
re your comments in quote marks
"I messaged his carer earlier this week with my concerns about his drinking".
Why did you do this?
You wasted your time in doing that sadly.
"He messaged me back about ten mins ago and suggested that we should try and get together to get him some more support....I'm flabbergasted".
I am not, infact I am not at all surprised. If you read this part of the 3 act play that is alcoholism you will see why:-
"The first person to appear is one we might call the Enabler, a "helpful" Mr. Clean who may be impelled, by his own anxiety and guilt, to rescue his friend, the alcoholic, from her predicament. He/she wants to save the alcoholic from the immediate crisis and relieve her of the unbearable tension created by the situation. In reality, this person may be meeting a need of her own, rather than that of the alcoholic, although he does not realize this himself. The Enabler may be a male outside of the family, perhaps a relative; occasionally a woman plays this role.
It is also played by the so-called "helping professions" - clergyman, doctors, lawyers, social workers. Many have had little, if any, of the scientific instruction on alcohol and alcoholism, which is essential in such specialized counseling. Lacking this knowledge, they handle the situation in the same process of learning by "correcting his/her own mistakes", and conditions him/her to believe there will always be a protector who will come to her rescue, even though the Enablers insist they will never again rescue her. They always have and the alcoholic believes they always will. Such rescue operations can be just as compulsive as drinking".
The role of the professional Enabler - (i.e. clergyman, doctor, lawyer or social worker) - can be most destructive, if it conditions the family to reduce the crisis rather than to use it to initiate a recovery program. The family has probably known for a few years that drinking was creating serious problems, but this is not so apt to be visible to person outside of the family. When the family turns to professionals who are not adequately qualified to deal with alcoholism, before the anti-social behavior has become obvious, the family may be told that this not alcoholism and that there is nothing they can do until the drinker wants help.
When alcoholism reaches the point where it breaks outside the family and the alcoholic herself turns to such professional people, he/she secures a reduction of his crisis by seeking and using those persons as Enablers. This again keeps the Merry-Go-Round going. The family which was told initially that there were no signs of alcoholism is now taught that the way to deal with it is to remove the symptoms, rather than to deal realistically with the illness. The very persons who failed to identify the alcoholism in its early stages may now treat the more advanced symptoms by helping the alcoholic get back on the merry-go-round. This further conditions the family to believe that nothing can be done to cope with the alcoholism. Even when the family members attempt to secure help for themselves or the alcoholic, the professional role may be that of an Enabler, rather than leading the family and the alcoholic into a long-range program of recovery. As the Enabler is the first person on the scene, he influences the remainder of the second act because it sets the direction and movement of this part of the play. Thus the uninformed professional helps everyone get back on the Merry-Go-Round.
Prepare to walk away for good on Thursday; any actions that are short of doing this will simply lead to more pain for you. Frankly he has put you through many years of abuse at his hands and you can and should say no more to being abused by him. Draw a line in the sand.