Anyone here watch this show? It's very different, and I would say a lot better, than The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. It's a Chuck Lorre show I actually like, one I'm not at all embarrassed to say I watch.
And I think I realized why. The jokes are still hackneyed and unfunny, but if you see them as coping mechanisms from troubled people and not jokes that are supposed to be funny (I've gotten good at tuning out laugh tracks), it works really well as a drama. It is annoyingly preachy about Twelve Step Programs, which are of questionable efficacy at best, but the annoying evangelicalism also represents how the people who make them work often see them.
I can't tell if these are intentional decisions made by Chuck Lorre or if he really believes that the jokes are funny and every addict should be in a Twelve Step program, but the way the show is written, it just kind of works, assuming you can also tune out laugh tracks.