The typical 12 step approach is to stop all drugs. For some people, that is how they have to do it, or they will end up back using what they prefer. The whole "crack rock at the bottom of the liquor bottle" idea that can be heard at 12 step meetings. Basically, if someone tries to drop the hard stuff and just drink or just smoke pot, they will end up back where they were.

However, and I say this cautiously because it is not my experience, I do know some people url who did "take it slow" so to speak. They either smoked pot still, used kratom or drank kava, to help with the urges.

I would point out tho, that continuing to use in any form, in my experience, only prolongs the process of getting off of the drugs and makes it more difficult in the end. That is my experience, however. If smoking pot or using kratom and/or kava (which a good friend of mine does to maintain sobriety from heroin and meth) can keep someone from using something harder and more damaging to their body, I'm not gonna outright say that is a bad thing.

There are different ideas of sobriety... The one that doctors push is total abstinence. Another approach is harm reduction. Usually, that looks like if someone relapses, to limit the physical harm and legal harm as much as possible until they can get back to total abstinence. To me, maintenance with marijuana can count as harm reduction for some people, until they can get to total abstinence in the first place.