It helped when I saw that the reason I was with an abusive alcoholic was my low self-esteem because then I was able (thanks to Alanon) to work on that problem. I learned that the way to get self-esteem was to take "esteemable" actions, which included setting boundaries. It was two steps forward, one step back. But the small victories were enormous reinforcement that change is possible; it felt good to get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. This led to taking the bigger, more difficult steps of leaving someone who only brought pain to my life.