This is such an important issue--but also fascinating in terms of jerlin09's presumed position, and OUG's polemic--that I can't resist commenting.
I'm a regular imbiber (sounds better) and my poison is wine, though I'm not prepared to mouth the confessional mantra: "I'm an alcoholic", which doesn't only prostrate the confessor before the court, it legitimates the court. In throwing oneself to the mercy of the court, one acknowledges its (in this case) ethical authority. I'm not prepared to do that.
I'm not prepared to be judged by this society's laughable ethics, ostensibly transgressed through over-consumption, while all the while consumption, in its myriad forms, is "the" prime virtue. Why, by the by, are our alcohol exports so celebrated if 'tis such a dangerous drug? Can we in all conscience market the drug when we're aware of its ill effects?
More importantly, if I allow that I am justly harangued by jerlin09 and OUG, I subscribe to the social institutions they argue are compromised thereby (alienation, btw jerlin09, is the mortar that holds our society together. Complaining of alienation is tautologous). They are compromised already and I refuse to make them respectable through my interpellation.
In any case, I see the various drug dependencies as evidence of a pathological culture. If I see Lemmings jumping off a cliff, I don't harangue them individually, I look to the culture--why do they behave in this self-destructive manner?

As things stand, I harken to old Khayam:

How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting?
Better go drunk and begging round the taverns.
Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yours
Will make a cup, bowl, one day a jar.

When once you hear the roses are in bloom,
Then is the time, my love, to pour the wine;
Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell-
These are but fairy-tales, forget them all.

Squeers:

I've tried to answer your "why?" in an earlier post - you obviously haven't read it. Anyway, here's a ditty for your enjoyment.

"I blow my pipes, the glad birds sing,
The fat young nymphs about me spring,
The sweaty centaur leaps the trees
And bites his dryad's splendid knees;
The sky, the water, and the earth
Repeat aloud our noisy mirth ...
Anon, tight-bellied bacchanals,
With ivy from the vineyard walls,
Lead out and crown with shining glass
The wine's red baby on the grass.

I blow my pipes, the glad birds sing,
The fat young nymphs about me spring,
I am the lord,
I am the lord,
I am the lord of everything!"
(Hugh McCrae).

Lexi,
I did indeed read your post. I was rather surprised at your saying pot isn't addictive actually. In my youner days I knew a group who would smoke tobacco from a bong when they were short of grass so as to simulate the experience..
You must be an old pot-heat.. that explains, and unwilling to acknowledge the noxious, incapacitating and lethal affects of weed? Not to mention the effects on that hallowed institution, the dysfunctional family.
I don't think you really addressed my allusion that drug use is a symptom of a pathological society, did you?

Loved the poem! Better than that translation of Khayam.

The only thing i have against being an alcoholic is the limit is to low.
They say 3 drinks / day and you are alcoholic. Hardly realistic, not my idea of being alcoholic. Nothing wrong with booze if you ain't goin no where. When you've had enough to start talking to yourself, it's amazing how many good decisions can be made. Whoever came up with the statistics
must have been one of them T-Totaler anti grogisers.

Yes, Squeers - it's strange, isn't it how our society wrings its hands over the tribulations caused by alcohol - yet there is a bottle shop on every second corner.

My father was a drinker. During my childhood, my whole week used to revolve around his behaviour on a Saturday.
During the week he was a mild-mannered, hard working, pleasant figure of a man. Come Saturday, however, it was his sworn duty to trot down to the pub (and adjoining TAB) where he duly set about getting pickled while simultaneously losing all our money for the coming week.
He was a bad-tempered drunk, and I well remember how I dreaded Saturday nights when he turned into a monster - loved Sunday mornings when he miraculously turned back into himself.
Funnily enough, Saturday is now the day when our family gathers for lunch. I have a couple of glasses of wine with my elderly mum, and talk of days gone by.

Squeers:

Actually - the pot issue is very close to home for me. It's my older brother (lives in Byron) who I love dearly - (I'm not into drugs - never have been) and he'd been smoking it for years. He was the one who told me it wasn't addictive and I believed him. However, he's recently had a triple by-pass operation on his heart - and it scared him enough to give it up permanently. (Yay!). Fingers-crossed he means it! (I think he does). Glad you liked the poem - it's one of my favourites - and I gave it to my husband for his 52nd Birthday - (he likes his wine as well).