just like "noday" said - it's a process
I didn't walk away from my exah and poof feel wonderful
we were married for 10 1/2 yrs - active disease; he entered rehab, got sober, I went to Al-Anon - we worked on ourselves, then our marriage; from my perspective we had the beginnings of what looked like it was going to be a recovery healthy marriage ~ but then we had Hurricane Rita come thru our area; there was chaos, pain, suffering and RELAPSE.
I stayed and tried for another 2 yrs - did a lot of grief work while I was there - it took a while to realize what I thought was going to happen ~ the dream life had died ~ time to go make another dream ~ and that's what I'm doing today!
Praying you continue to heal and find your new dream!