As a person in recovery from alcoholism I had already hit bottom once.
Falling in love with someone addicted to crack brought me to a deeper darker bottom where I had to deal with something deeper...my desperate want of love, my codependency.
I found myself in a deep well of despair and felt like love was being torn and smashed. And then...after alienating many people, feeling like a desperate victim, feeling hate and bitterness...feeling myself losing my sanity...
I finally discovered I needed to love myself
then, I started crawling back up out of that well.
Now I know I love myself. I trust myself and I tend to my boundaries. I practice healthy detachment (not that it always comes easily!) which I have discovered is needed in many areas of life, not just with addicts.
I discovered that love and hope are not necessarily benevolent forces...just like the idea that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...love and hope exist in relationship, and the quality of those forces are based upon the mental/emotional/spiritual health of those experiencing them.