It's revealed at the end of this article (published today, March 30, 2024) that the subject of the article died in a memory care facility in... 2017.

His son, in a blog post easily Googled using the names in the article, indicates that his father had been in a facility to treat his Alzheimer's (and, we assume, as the article states, free from alcohol) since 2011 - and had likely not had a sip of alcohol since that time, over 12 years ago.

(The article itself indicates that the son has been free from alcohol since hearing about his father's initial hospitalization 13 years ago.)

Alcohol abuse is a real thing, but this is some seriously bad reporting that does not seem to have much to do with the specific state of things in 2024.