I actually remember years ago when I went to a conference on humane drug policy, and one of the speakers was a researcher on alcoholism. He suggested that while quitting fully would of course be the ideal alternative when struggling with alcohol, but for many that was just never going to happen.
If the only attempted treatment then was abstaining completely then there would be no treatment, because that would not work. Instead he said for some, as a realistic harm reduction measure, it could be to reduce the amount one drinks per drinking session or maybe reducing drinking days in total to the weekends or such.
Because even if the person would still have alcohol addiction, at least one could more realistically make a positive impact on it, something you could not if you're insisting on being all-or-nothing about it. Approaching it with an individualised treatment path might also make quitting fully more of a possibility in the future too.
I've been involved in harm reduction and humane drug policy activism for quite a while now, and time and time again I see that help, support and having community is key to recovery. If you're not focusing on fixing the underlying issue -causing- the addiction issues, then it will usually not work. Addiction is as you say, a coping mechanism. You can try to replace it with a different and hopefully healthier coping mechanism, but generally as long as there are real, practical reasons causing the need to cope, the issues will continue.
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