We're fortunate to have you posting on this board, Taz, because you give us food for thought. I was a codie long before I hooked up with my AH. I was in a long line of disasterous relationships, although not all were with A's.
Yes, I knew my AH was an alkie on our second date because I could tell by the way he picked up. However, he was the most polite, sweet-natured guy I had ever met. He had a few problems with his drinking, but about eight months after being dating buddies, we got serious. He was in AA and, in hindsight, he was using the same M.O. way back then: get into some sort of trouble (with work or a DUI) and start "working" a program. Yeah, right.
He had many positive attributes, and he let them shine through while courting me. But once he slipped that wedding band on my finger (or should I say, he had me legally "hooked") .... yikes! That's when I started seeing the REAL thing.
So once upon a time, a sick codie and a sick A got together, fell in "love," and proceeded down the path to the looney bin ....