Sarah, I'm so glad you found us. There is a wealth of information and support here (have you read the Sticky posts at the top of the forum?) and I know it will help you through this time.
I'm sorry you are sad -- and yes, we all understand how you feel. I know there is little I could say that will help you heal faster (and that is what's happening: you're healing right now and it hurts just as a wound would hurt). But I did want to share this, in the hopes that it might help:
There are two ways that you might look at your situation:
The first, the one you're feeling right now, is that you were abandoned by a man who "chose alcohol over you," doesn't care enough, etc.
The second is that you made an intelligent, conscious choice on behalf of your little boy to remove him from a situation that was going to turn him into a very damaged adult. You'd hoped that, as a side benefit, it might be like a wake-up call, capable of changing someone's basic nature, but it wasn't.
Neither way of looking at it gives you instant healing and happiness again. But if you choose to look at things the second way -- and really feel it when you look in your son's eyes -- you will get better with each passing day, and you will know you did the right thing.
I know you love him. I know you wish he would get help, get 100% better, and you would have back the best of what you used to have. But this is magical thinking, trying to alter something you didn't cause, can't cure, can't control.
What you CAN control -- whether you will pass the cycle of alcoholism on through your son, and whether you were willing to live with the constant nagging stress of alcohol and drug abuse -- you have done.
Please stick around. Share your stories, your feelings. Read a lot of posts -- learn about the evolution many have gone through, from agony to joy. Continue to work on yourself in every way that reaches out to you -- you will grow stronger. Learn everything you can about alcoholism and you will learn, above everything else: His alcoholism is not about you. It just
is.
Regardless of "his" choices, YOU can still have an amazingly happy life. I promise you that. Your healing starts today......lean on us!!
GL