not quite strictly sober, in and out of rehabs
Incandenza, while not quite strictly sober, is lucid
Context
JOI's Clipperton-era drinking stated in passing on either side of the suicide he witnessed: "not quite strictly sober" as he counsels the doomed boy, and "in and out of rehabs" and no longer a credible source by the end. The father's disease running underneath the whole scene, neither foregrounded nor deniable.