I posted a similar question to this awhile back. One of the most confusing things to me....confusing the drink with the character. I think when you love an A...you fantasize about the "wonderful person who used to be in there". My therapist helped me see this differently.
Not drinking, he was kind, sociable, thoughtful, charismatic. But also a complete master of disguise. He was incredibly, highly skilled at figuring out what I wanted to hear, who I wanted him to be...then shape shifted into that. I bought it! I did not see it for what it was: a finely developed political skill he'd developed over decades with the disease. It nearly made me crazy thinking I was so stupid to not be able to "see" this other person.
When he relapsed, all the skill at shapeshifting collapsed...and the cruelty, the narcicissim, the lying and deceit....all right there. Drinking, he could no longer navigate the intricate web of lies and fantasy. I thought some stranger had moved in. I learned that I was just meeting the real person, underneath the politician.
Emotionally.....it is this recognition that is so devastating and why we must also recover. So hard to grasp this. But once I could see it, that was the beginning of recovery and detachment for me. I had to see it as it was. This finally explained to me why it was so seemingly easy for him to just walk away from everything I thought had meaning to him.
A good therapist combined with Al Anon....got me through this, but it was ROUGH