I think I get it - for me it felt a bit like "ok, I'm sober. So now what's the big deal?" When I really think about it, I realize that if I hadn't stopped drinking I probably wouldn't be alive now. And I definitely wouldn't be aware and simply living my life - good and bad. It's the same old thing I learned in dealing with very old trauma memories - if we want to really experience life, it means accepting and dealing with both the ups and downs. What we suppress we can't work on. If we don't experience pain and sadness at times, we are also robbed of experiencing joy and serenity.
I think that it's in the contrasts that we gradually learn to appreciate what we have.