Not sure I have any answers for you but I can share my experience. My ex partner was not a drinker but did have a serious porn and cocaine addiction. I stayed with him for 10 years, he never accepted he had a problem and blamed everyone else for why he did what he did if challenged. I felt that I needed to stay and see it through, that if I left I would be giving up and I should have more faith and tenacity because that's what good people do right?. Previous relationships had always gone badly for me and with this one I thought that I needed to grow up and stay when the times were hard, that's what you do isn't it? Through thick and thin and never turn your back? What I learned was that isn't always the case and sometimes the right thing to do is to walk away. The serentiy prayer is a perfect moto to live by and I realised that nothing I could say or do was going to change him, I was lonely and desperately unhappy. To stay in the relationship to support him meant I would loose myself and that is not a healthy MO to live your life by.
I guess I stayed the amount of time I did because I lacked confidence, I took his addiction to mean some kind of failure on my part as a human being. If I was better or nicer or whatever he would get better no? Also becoming single again was a terrifying thought, no one to watch tv with, meals for one, sleeping alone and the fear of being lonely and alone. But the reality was whilst in that relationship I was already lonely and alone. xx