Hugs, Qbert. (If I could I'd be clicking the Thanks button for Noday's post more than once.)
XAH was verbally, emotionally and sexually abusive. His focus each time I left (yes, it was more than once) was on his drinking; my focus was there, too. I didn't realize that, like Noday points out, alcoholism and abuse are two completely separate issues.
One way I've seen it put is alcohol doesn't turn people into something they're not, it just makes them forget to hide it.
Each time I left, XAH would promise to stop drinking, would promise that he HAD stopped drinking, that he was going to AA and had "so many amends to make to [me]". I went back a couple times, because I thought that if he stopped drinking, it'd ALL get better. In my particular case, everything he told me was always a lie: he never stopped drinking (or at least for more than a VERY short while; he most certainly never went to AA.
And each time I did go back, after the little honeymoon period of him trying to be oh-so-sweet, his abusive behavior got progressively worse. Kind of ratcheted up a notch, so to speak.
A really helpful book is Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft.