Originally Posted by
honeypig 
Please do understand--his recovery or lack thereof has nothing, nada, not the slightest thing, to do with your "giving up on him." That decision is his, his and his alone, to make.
You can only choose what you do with YOUR life, not what he does with his. One of the best short quotes I have seen on this topic is this: "Letting go doesn't mean you stop caring. It means you stop trying to force others to care."
This goes into a little more depth:
There is a big difference between giving up and letting go. Giving up means selling yourself short. It means allowing fear and struggle to limit your opportunities and keep you stuck. Letting go means freeing yourself from something that is no longer serving you. It means removing toxic people and belief systems from your life so that you can make room for relationships and ideas that are conducive to your wellbeing and happiness. Giving up reduces your life. Letting go expands it. Giving up is imprisoning. Letting go is liberation. Giving up is self-defeat. Letting go is self-care.
So the next time you make the decision to release something or someone that is stifling your happiness and growth, and a person has the audacity to accuse you of giving up or being weak, remind yourself of the difference. Remind yourself that you don’t need anyone’s permission or approval to live your life in the way that feels right. No one has the authority to tell you who to be or how to live. No one gets to decide what your life should look like or who should be a part of it. No one, but you.
The difference is enormous, and understanding it changed my life in ways I never imagined, ways totally unrelated to the A in my life, as well in the ways one might think it would.
Honeypig, thank you for taking the time to make things clear. It makes so much sense once you grasp the difference between the two. When I said "I'm not ready to give up" I was mostly talking about me being not ready, and still I would have to know the difference between the two.
I have never changed how I felt about drinking and smoking. He knew and knows how much I dislike constant drinking. I would like to believe I have not enabled him either. I just don't like second guessing everything I'm saying or doing in my relationship because the other person gets defensive and manipulative in a situation he doesn't like to be in.