She Wanted to Keep Drinking but Got Sober – The Curious Case of the Efficacy of Harm Reduction
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 22
- 7 min read
For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional but undeniably effective.
On paper, her life looked like shit. Two estranged, grown sons. No social life. A completely dysfunctional neighborhood, with neighbors trying to recruit her into their personal vendettas against the other residents on the block. A ton of time watching trashy television programs. Very limited physical activity. Lousy diet. She was old, bordering on elderly, in her 70s now, but she had one reliable thing that brought her a sense of peace, contentment, pleasure, and relief. That thing was red wine.
She wasn’t drinking expensive, vintage Bordeauxs. No, she bought the cheap stuff. The $10 bottle, as she drank for effect, for the pleasure it provided. And when we first became acquainted, many years ago now, her message to me was clear:
“I do not want to stop drinking wine, but I know I need to cut down. I’m drinking too much every day, sometimes three bottles’ worth. I want to keep being a wine drinker, I just need help in cutting down.”
“Okay,” I replied. And that’s where we started. Her daily consumption, at her age, was inevitably starting to, or already had been starting to, wreak havoc on her internal organs. She knew it, I knew it. She was petite to begin with. Three bottles a day? Whatever your body size or weight, that’s a lot of alcohol to be consuming. Too much. Harm reduction promises only one possible outcome, to reduce the harm. So that’s where the work began.
Now, how do we get from three bottles down to less? The approach I suggested was a simple one, and it was relegated to alcohol consumption only. I was not encouraging her to go out and try to build a healthier routine, to find positive and healthy people to build a support network, to get better physical exercise, to eat more nutritious foods, or to avoid the neighborhood drama, because she told me explicitly that she didn’t want to hear any of that. Autonomy. As a treater, there is nothing more important than respecting the wants and goals of the client, all the time and every time. Their life belongs to them, and their goals are the goals that we support.
She wanted to cut down, and that was it.
So my suggestion was this, “When you pour that first glass of wine in the afternoon, fill it up halfway, and dilute it with water. That way, your brain is still going to get the pleasure it seeks, it’s still going to feel like a full glass of wine, but by virtue of adding water, you’ll be consuming less alcohol.”
And she was on board. Excellent. What happened after was something that neither she nor I would have ever anticipated, and it went something like this. Though the rest of her day-to-day life still basically sucked, and we did much dialoguing about the suckiness of it all, she stuck to the plan of diluting the drinks. Over time, and this was not an overnight sensation, mind you, three bottles turned to two and a half. She plateaued there for a little while but continued watering down each glass.
On occasion, some mornings, she fancied a Bloody Mary. Though never a fan of hard liquor, that was a particular cocktail she enjoyed, and she enjoyed the fact that the added vegetable/fruit juice was giving her body some nutrition compared to something like a vodka and soda. It was better than the usual dietary choices. V8, comparable to a multivitamin basically, and a couple of healthy shots of some cheap vodka as a morning hit of pleasure to go along with it. We employed a similar method. Instead of adding a couple of shots to the glass, she would only add one.
It was enough to “ring the bell” in her brain’s pleasure center and provide her with just enough of the delightful neurotransmitters that made her feel good and numb to all the suckiness of the rest of her life, without overdoing it. Same thing with the wine. Her brain, satiated by just enough of the ethanol but coupled with good old-fashioned water, started to retrain her circuitry to be okay enough with the results. Just enough pleasure. Not as much as she was accustomed to, but just enough to keep her from wanting to jump out of her skin.
Two and a half bottles started turning into two. Again, this wasn’t something that happened in a matter of days or weeks. This was a months-long process, and it wasn’t without its occasional setbacks. There were some nights when she would overdo it with the wine or add the additional shot to the morning cocktail, but she remained diligent about cutting down the quantity and committed to the approach. That’s the thing about change. It’s not an event, it’s a process. Sometimes one step forward and two steps back, sometimes two steps forward and one step back, but never a simple straight line from A to B. Change and growth are not linear. They happen on a continuum that sometimes veers off in different directions.
Over the next couple of months, she reported to me that she had gotten herself from two bottles a day down to one and a half, and that the day hadn’t been so hard. No major anxiety or stress, still enjoying the pleasure of her best friend in the bottle, but simultaneously proud of herself for hitting this benchmark. I could see, feel, and hear her self-confidence starting to grow more substantially. I told her I was proud of her, she told me she was proud of herself too.
Then, one day, it was one and a half down to one. One bottle of wine that day. She had just as many glasses as any other day, but she was finding herself adding less wine to the glass and topping it off with more water than she had in the months prior. Along this process, whether she realized it or not, she was literally and functionally retraining her brain to be okay with less, when before we started working together, her pleasure center was always demanding that she drink more.
Then, one bottle decreased to half a bottle. She told me that she was sleeping better. She had dropped some weight. She was buying healthier groceries at the market and actually doing some cooking instead of just heating up her usual frozen entrees in the oven. She was spending more time outside, taking walks on nice days, just a couple of meandering laps around the neighborhood. Sitting in her backyard and enjoying the view of the river behind it. She told me she was looking better, feeling better, and doing better, in all different directions. Good stuff.
One day, during a session, she excitedly told me the news. “I didn’t drink any wine yesterday, or the day before that, and I haven’t had any today!”
“How are you feeling?” I asked her. “Are you doing okay? Any symptoms of withdrawal or anything we should be concerned about?” (I already knew the answer from the tone and tenor of her voice.)
“Nothing!” she exclaimed. “I’m feeling great! Did you know that there’s a whole selection of non-alcoholic wines on the market? Apparently, some of them are almost indistinguishable from the real thing!”
“Have you tried any of them?” I asked. “Or, are you planning on trying any out?”
She thought for a few beats, and replied, “Nah. You know what? I’m actually not really that interested.”
When I asked her about the Bloody Marys, she told me that she was just drinking V8 straight, with a celery stalk and a lemon wedge to go along with it. She had hit the mark and accomplished her goal. Her goal was to keep on drinking, and so she continued to drink, for a while at least. This whole saga took place over the course of about nine or ten months. But in the process of simply watering down her go-to source by which to cope with all the suckiness of the rest of her lifestyle, she had accidentally wandered into a healthier lifestyle, and one that was no longer compelling her to feel like she had to self-medicate with such frequency and in such large amounts.
The ripple effect of her decreasing her intake of booze, and in reducing the harm it was causing, spread into other areas of her day-to-day existence. From a veritable recluse to someone who was now outside working in the garden, connecting with some old friends, eating healthier foods, and engaging in other assorted projects and hobbies beyond trashy TV shows, she accomplished her goal.
She cut down her drinking. And in cutting down her drinking, she accidentally sobered up completely. At last check, she hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in nearly three months. Will she ever have a glass of real wine again? Or try something of the non-alcoholic variety? Who knows? It’s a bridge to cross if and when it ever appears, but as of today, her path is one of better health, better self-esteem, more belief in herself, less hopelessness, less fear-driven thinking, decreased anxiety and depression, more engagement with the world, and hope.
Who knew? Who knew that the power of diluting an alcoholic beverage with water could have such positive and far-reaching effects? I did. And now she does. Will this method work for every problematic drinker? Invariably, the answer is “probably not,” as everyone’s recovery journey is uniquely unique. But we’re not talking about anyone else in this particular case. We’re talking about her journey, and how the simple solution of watering down those drinks led her to becoming accidentally abstinent.
Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson
Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Addictions Therapist
After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is something that is worth more than any dollar amount.
