abstainer

Noun

abstainer (plural abstainers)

1. One who abstains; especially, one who abstains from something, such as the use of alcohol or drugs, or one who abstains for religious reasons; one who practices self-denial.
   • To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence.1920, Sigmund Freud, chapter V, in M. D. Eder, transl., Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners, New York: The James A. McCann Company
   • He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty.1949, George Orwell, chapter 4, in Nineteen Eighty-Four

   Synonyms:

   Nazarite, teetotaler