I was never able to quit for anyone else either, and from what I have /heard/seen/observed if one is an alcoholic, that is a common trait, people lose their lives, freedom, family, children, mate etc and are unable to quit even though it costs them these things.
As a sober man if I met a woman who was going to "quit for me" would have me running the other direction so fast I'd probably knock people over in my haste to get to the door. I would view it as nothing but an unhealthy and codependant dynamic. I would literally run.
However, when I worked the steps, there is a part where I got to do a sexual inventory, part of that inventory is writing a sexual ideal of the qualities I wanted in a mate, at that point any sponsor worth their salt will glance at the list, pull out any unhealthy howlers and explain why they are unhealthy, and then say "OK, You want this person in your life with these qualities?"
"Then you have become that person"
I attract what I am, I hear people sharing in meetings about how they have "broken pickers" because in a room with 100 mates they can invariably pick the unhealthy one.
To me that says their picker is just fine, they pick who and where they are, they pick their mirror. If they pick the unhealthy person 10 out of ten times, it's not their picker that is broken, it's the operating system behind it. Garbage in garbage out, and like attract like, and unhealthy attracts unhealthy.
What is it that attracts us to each other? when our eyes meet across the room and we make the smoldering glance and dream of the future?
Our matching mental illnesses or where we are in our spiritual development.
A relationship won't fix me, as a matter of fact turning to a relationship to fix me has never not made me incredibly worse off, my stupidity and consequently my subsequent experience with this is vast and my pain vaster, I have washed up in Alanon and therapy to try and repair the damage from my stupidity around this issue, the pain I have caused myself and others around this is incalculable.
My sexual inventories show me that when I am growing towards health I pick people that are also growing towards health, and the healthier I am, the healthier are the people I am attracted to, the inverse has also proven to be true.
Science and nature show us that nothing stays in one place, at any given time I am going one of two directions, towards health or towards sickness, that's my experience and observation, if I want a relationship with someone who is also getting sicker I do nothing and look for Ms. Right, if I want a relationship with someone who is growing healthier, I don't look for anyone but I start doing the work and growing towards health myself and she will appear as if by magic.
If I want an unhealthy mate I go looking for a mate, if I want a healthy mate I get healthy first and ignore trying to fill that void with another person just like I do with alcohol.
My experience with my own life and sponsoring others has turned my opinion of this to be a mathematical certainty.
When I got to the point in my life where I had been sober a few years and wanted a healthy relationship, I went to therapy and then couples counseling to learn how to do things differently then I had been doing them.
Money WELL spent.