Living sober is really a state of mind that is only achieved after a certain length of time in sobriety.  This length of time will differ depending on the person, but most people find that they are living sober within a year or two of first sobering up. 

In early recovery we are not, what I would call, living sober.  At that point you are just new to sobriety and you are still learning how to claw your way through each day without picking up a drink.  This is not living with real serenity just yet...it takes time to build up to such a smooth ideal.  This will come for anyone who remains sober and pushes themselves to keep growing in their recovery.  If you are persistent then you will reap these benefits and one day you will experience true freedom from addiction.

Many people get stuck in early recovery and they come to depend on networking with others as their primary mode of keeping sober.  This is not an ideal path and if you want the long term sobriety that is so valuable then you are going to have to work a bit harder.  This means creating your own path towards living sober and eventually you will have to push yourself to start growing holistically as well.  Holistic growth might sound fancy but it really just means that you are going to grow in many different ways.  For example, emotional growth, spiritual growth, physical fitness, and so on.  Do not make the mistake of limiting yourself to just spiritual growth, as this can be a common mistake that newcomers make in early recovery. 

Once you have made this transition into long term recovery then the only thing that really remains is for you to fight off complacency on a daily basis.  If you get complacent and stop growing and pushing yourself to learn new things then you will get lazy and you run the risk of possibly relapsing.  If this happens then you could be in danger of losing your sobriety.  Therefore the real key to living sober is to push yourself to keep growing and learning in your recovery.