One thing that I need to remember is "Individuals also differ in their capacity to exercise judgment and inhibit impulses." All that enter into recovery IMO are not the same in make-up: "If the prefrontal cortex is not functioning properly, an addictive drug has more power to monopolize the reward circuit."
To know myself, to know my strengths and limitations through what it has been for me, trial and error, I have become familiar with myself. Self-knowledge allows me to set in place safeguards that aid me in my addiction and mental illness treatments. I for one need assistance in my wellness journey. The beauty is, like in life, there is more than one way to get to the proverbial mountain top. Something like cultivating a heightened awareness. I need teachers to show me the way. Fortunately for me, with the advent of available books and now electronic media. The teacher is at hand, always. I have other teachers too in the F2F world. They can be mentors, friends, family, professionals and so on.
So to the question of self-awareness and its role in sobriety (among other things). Yes and no, I need to know what I'm doing. But pure knowledge (self or other for that matter) alone is good for nothing if there is no practice to put it to application in the real world.
All quotes are from:
The Addicted Brain