I finally told someone else
My husband went to lunch and the movies with one of his friends yesterday. When he got home, he was sweating and shaking and it turned out he had a heat flash at the end of the movie and had to sit down in the lobby because he was too weak to stand. He used to get these every day I wrote about that in my first post here on reddit. He's a little better now that he's eating more, but I guess not much...
Anyway, his friend messaged me this morning and my first thought was, "Don't tell him everything..." then I thought, You know what? No. I'm tired of carrying this alone. So I told him everything. That these heat flashes are not rare, that my husband is not well and I'm pretty sure that his liver is shutting down because he's an alcoholic and has been for a very long time.
I'm both relieved and wary. His friend said they suspected something because the head flash was pretty spectacular, but they're not sure how they can help. They did offer to help since they've been friends since high school (we're all in our late fifties). My hands are still shaking though. It was a big step.