Do people with addiction really need to “live in recovery”? Can’t they just get sober and go on with their lives? Can’t they just go to treatment and get cured and move on?
Sobriety is just the first step in recovery. Treatment, too, is just the beginning. Recovery is really a lifelong process; like dealing with diabetes or another chronic disease, it is something that needs to be tended to every day.
Once a person gets sober, there is much more work to be done. 
They need to learn about their own personal triggers for relapse, and how to live their life in recovery while minimizing the risk of relapse. They need to restore their relationships and health; indeed, many need to rebuild their entire lives.
People in recovery also need to focus on different issues at different times. You can’t do everything at once in the first week that you get sober. For example, when you are in the fragile days of early sobriety, it is not the time to try to fix all of your relationships or go back to school. At that time, it’s best to focus solely on staying sober and learning about the cues and triggers that could lead you to a relapse. Taking on all of these tasks and issues is part of “living in recovery.”
Learn all about recovery in The Recovery Book. 