Cannot tell you how much I needed each and every word from all of you. Heartfelt thanks.

A note to clarify. My post does indeed say spouse-hitting. I'm not the person who was hit, although it is true that the person doing the hitting is a blood relative.

Yes, my extended family has a living room large enough to accommodate De Nial River as well as more elephants than I can keep count of!
The drug user in question is using MDMA -- called something else, on the street -- that I know of, maybe other substances I don't know of.
The addiction elephant has been around for generations. The earliest alcoholic I know of was a direct ancestor who died, at an advanced age, in 1915. Those descendants of his, who were not alcoholics or users, were expected to enable, cover up, and protect everybody from the consequences of their behavior.   There is a self-identified alcoholic in my generation for example; last time I had a conversation with this latter person, we had a big fight and we will probably never speak again. I don't know of any of my relatives, with chemical dependencies, going for treatment or confronting the fact that they have an illness. The whole famn damily is just expected to be sick right along with them.

I am reminded of, I think it was the Nobel-winning Max Planck:

"Science progresses funeral by funeral."

That's true of some families as well. Sorry that is so down, but it's life, at the moment.