Being sober is not about never taking another drink, never popping another pill, or never pumping more poison into a vein.
Being sober is about recognizing and understanding the consequences to choices and accepting them at face-value. It is about being responsible for and to one’s own choices in life without need for self-delusion, self-medication, or self-avoidance.
Being sober is about being human: flawed yet honest, resolute yet compassionate, but—most of all—evolving to a future without degradation to the past. Life is cyclic, to be sure, but if you are repeating the same cycles over and over again, you are stuck somewhere in that past.