I get it. I really do. Why don't you try replacing "drink" with "other woman" and see if that feels OK. Because it's the same thing. He loves the drink more than you. If he said he loved another woman more than you, it would be a lot easier to let go, even though it's the same thing. We want to make it different, because it hurts less that way.
On Thanksgiving, my AH started sobbing and apologizing and saying he loved me and that maybe we could work things out. Yet, he was planning to leave in a few days to go on a road trip with the person he had an affair with and help her move back here to be with him. I feel so lucky right now that it's another woman involved, and not *just* alcohol, because I know I would have been so swept up in his declarations of love and I would have rationalized it away if he was going on a road trip with his fave drinking buddy instead of with the other woman. (He's sober at the moment, btw.) But it would be the same thing. He still can't be the man I deserve and he still isn't truly sorry or truly in love with me.