Hi Codejob,
Your "heart" is really chemicals dumping into your system. This is how our bodies get "feelings". It is a chemical process and we are hardwired to not breakup with those we have been intimate with for years.
Is it love? What is love? This gets complicated. Loving alcoholics usually involves intense "feelings" that are chemical in nature. Further complications are that the A often was once our knight in shining armor and we feel if we love them and put all our resources into turning them back into Prince Charming we are powerful enough to do this somehow. Because of our love...our intense feelings and willingness to sacrifice.
It is a fantasy. It is a falsehood. We are not that powerful. We don't even know if Prince Charming was ever really there. Did we imagine it? Were their feelings equally intense and can we somehow make them "feel" those feelings again? Get those chemical dumps of pleasure and intense longing for us as the love of their life? If they did fall back in crazy love (chemicals dumping in waterfall doses) would they stop drinking at last?
Even if they fell MADLY in love with us like that first insane moment we were awash with the most intense feelings of "love" and desire washing over us... it would not stop their drinking.
Not even close. Even if that incredible high of "love" is 20 times better than a drunken night they will reach for the bottle. Its what A's do...they drink. It is a disease.
It has been 3 years now since I have been with my A. He was the love of my life but as the years go by and I watch him careen around the country drunk...quacking all the while... what did I used to love about him? His good looks? His charm? His ability to make me laugh? All of those things are fading quickly as his disease progresses. Watching him kill himself slowly is so sad but I am grateful he is another state and not in my house torturing me with his crazy train.
My feelings have completely faded to pity and prayer. That crazy love is gone at last. Sadly. He could have made me very happy had he been a normie. But if her were normal would I have had that crazy insane waves of emotion? Was my codie dysfunction part of the chemical volcano of crashing emotions?
Who knows? Who cares now? The wreckage and insanity of our relationship is in the past. I talk about it here when there is wonder and questions about relationships and feelings of "love".
Now I have peace and serenity...and working on wisdom! I can tell you this ... my broken picker has been tamed and those guys that send off electric shockwaves...I see through them real quick now. And...my life is so complete I don't want or need a man to live with me. Relationships are always work and I am on a looooong vacation! lol