My AH is not verbally or physically abusive. The couple of times he was on the edge of being verbally abusive was during very heated arguments while he was loaded. Our relationship problem was all the lying and manipulation that went into him protecting his addiction, the lies he told me, himself, and his treatment team. It was also all the empty and broken promises.
You ask whether alcoholics are inherently "abusive" and you're going to get a lot of answers. No, "all" alcoholics aren't abusive in the sense that you couldn't have him hauled away for assault or prove emotional abuse in court. But many of us spouses and SOs and children of alcoholics suffer very real trauma from living in close proximity to the addiction, and no, not all of it is physical.
If it feels like friends and family are exaggerating the effects of addiction on their lives, or that you're being told you're exaggerating the effects of another's addiction on your life, well, my signature quote is there for a reason. People deny and minimize their bad behavior because it's difficult to face the pain you've caused another person.