Well, personally, I just never bought into the powerlessness doctrine in the first place. I know from my very earliest experience w/ alcohol that it makes me drunk. And I understand from only slightly later experience that once you've had a few, you're in no position to judge just how drunk you are. So, if I'm gonna drink at all, I either do it when I won't have to drive or make any important decisions or I limit myself to two. (I'm a very tiny little woman, 2 beers followed by an hour or so of water or tea and I'm good to drive) And like Frod says. If I'm drinking too much, I just quit going to be beer store. It was easier in Florida. Here in PA you either pay bar prices or you have to buy a case at a time. So I've had to invite 3 other drunks into the house to help make that work out. But it's just a matter of understanding how the stuff effects you and planning ahead not to make an ass of yourself.
Pot doesn't present even that minimal amount of management problem. Toke if it's convienient, don't if it's not.
Opiates, I just don't like them. I'm just weird that way. I have a few good friends who have been hooked before. None of them ever have recomended that I do the same or discarded as trivial the difficulty in weening down. But that's all it is. Whether you go to meetings and fill your head w/ parables and moral imperatives or not, the deal w/ opiate addiction is that you have to ween down, get dope sick and mean then do it again. Works the same w/ or w/o the meetings. Except, of course, if you buy into the program dogma, it's all or nothing, black or white, life or death. Plus you find yourself at odds w/ people who may actually have some good advice and support for you in that regard because you're essentially not allowed to entertain the notion of taking control of your own substance use by your own will.
And, quite honestly, if I had only to choose between social contact w/ active junkies and social contact w/ militant steppers, I'm hangin' w/ the junkies, no doubt! In my experience, they're just nicer, more intellectually honest and sincere people.
The only voluntary urine sample they'll get from me is a taste test
--Bumper Sticker