To say one accepts that human beings are imperfect does not mean that you endorse their imperfection. You want to encourage those you are helping to greater heights and larger successes. But it is the recognition and encouragement of smaller successes that lead to such progress. In particular, helping people to think about how to take care of themselves, even if they continue to drink and take drugs, may be an entirely new attitude for some people. When they first start getting medical care for health problems, or eating well or avoiding infection, or staying out of legal trouble, or getting a place to live, or accumulating money, etc., this new attitude can grow so that it crowds out all problem drug use or drinking.
What we consider substance abuse therapy in the United States consists largely of exhortation—"quit drug taking and drinking!" Real therapists must know how to improve the conditions of a range of clients, from those who are ahead of the therapist in curing themselves, to those who merely need encouragement, to those who need help to avoid falling off the edge, to those who may have given up and who are waiting —or helping themselves—to die.
- excerpt from The Stanton Peele Addiction Website, on the subject of Harm Reduction