In a way I feel I unwittingly followed the route of harm reduction and ended up at abstinence. I tried controlling and all that with my therapist, we worked on issues of self-care, even had a stint at abstinence awhile back, although definitely was not by the book harm reduction. But I have been "working on my drinking" for a long time without stopping. I kept telling everyone I wouldn't stop but I still wanted to work on it. When people even brought up abstinence I about had a hissy fit. I just wasn't ready. That is why I think other models are so important to allow people to get into the game. They can start thinking about drinking as a problem in their life. Two years later and finally I was ready for abstinence and embraced it fully along with recovery. But I would have been like f*** off to anyone in the beginning, especially my therapist, had been like, you have a drinking problem and people with drinking problems have to stop drinking before we can do anything with them. Way too scary.