Restricting liquor, ultimately managed to reverse being in debt (9)
I believe the answer is:
narrowing
'restricting' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'liquor ultimately managed to reverse being in debt' is the wordplay.
'ultimately' suggests the final letters.
'managed' becomes 'ran' (I've seen this before**).
'to reverse' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'being in debt' becomes 'owing' (I've seen this before).
The last letter of 'liquor' is 'r'.
'r'+'ran'='rran'
'rran' backwards is 'narr'.
'narr'+'owing'='NARROWING'
(Other definitions for narrowing that I've seen before include "Getting fine" , "Becoming less wide" .)