Originally Posted by
invisigoth 
I'm an alcoholic and I'm not abusive to anyone, except perhaps myself. I don't yell at or hit my wife nor am I mentally abusive to her or anyone else in my life. Alcoholism and its effects are relative to the person.
You dont say whether you are an active alcoholic.
There are many different types of abuse in my opinion from the subtle to the obvious. Sure, yelling at, hitting or mental abuse is pretty obvious but abuse takes on many forms.
Isolation, irrational jealousy, subtle presence of physical violence, discounting, minimizing, and trivializing, criticizing, withholding and blaming are all forms of abuse, as is overt abuse, covert (or controlling) abuse, unpredictability, disproportional (exaggerated) reactions, dehumanization and objectification, abuse of information, impossible situations (setting up to fail), control by proxy, ambient abuse (gaslighting). (All courtesy of Wikipedia)
I cant speak for all alcoholics but my active AH is definitely abusive to me in a number of ways. He has been verbally abusive and a number of other things on my list above. My AH falls asleep every evening, very early and I am left sat with my own company and I feel extremely lonely. He is not hitting me, mentally abusing me, but he is neglecting his wife and his marriage. Abuse is quite a strong word for this type of behavior, I grant you but the roller coaster ride of emotions he puts me through has definitely left me feeling mentally abused.
I think the more subtle abuse, is sometimes more damaging. Just my opinion.