Abstinence is harm reduction, not its opposite. The speaker argues it's the most effective form, and people in recovery should credit themselves for it instead of dismissing their sobriety as something separate from harm reduction work.
I mean, so often I will hear someone says, I can't do harm reduction, I have to do abstinence. There is no separation between harm reduction and abstinence. Abstinence is harm reduction. What better way to reduce the harm than to abstain completely? Yes. So when people tell me that, it's like, no, it's not that you're not doing it, you're actually practicing the highest form of harm reduction. Give yourself a pat on the back for doing that instead of telling yourself you can't do something, that you can't do the thing that you are already succeeding at.
