Songfacts®:

• After several years of using prescription drugs, cocaine, and alcohol to numb the pain of her emotional issues, Demi Lovato went sober in March 2012. The former Disney star stayed clean for six years before a relapse led to a downward spiral that climaxed with an opioid overdose. During this haunting ballad, she recounts her near-fatal descent into addiction.
• Lovato kicks off the song by describing the seemingly innocent start of her problems.
  
  It's just a little red wine, I'll be fine
  Not like I wanna do this every night
  I've been good, don't I deserve it?
  
  By the second verse she has moved onto "a little white line" before things really get out of hand.
  
  But soon, that little white line is a little glass pipe
  Tinfoil remedy, almost got the best of me
  I keep praying I don't reach the end of my lifetime
  
  During the chorus, Lovato reflects on how her "dancing with the devil" nearly led to her death.
  
  Almost made it to Heaven
  It was closer than you know
  Playing with the enemy, gambling with my soul
  
  Lovato later revealed she had multiple health complications because of the overdose, including three strokes, a heart attack, and brain damage.
• Lovato wrote the confessional ballad with Bianca "Blush" Atterberry, John Ho, and the track's producer, Mitch Allan.
  
  Mitch Allan, together with his then production partner Jason Evigan, co-wrote several of Lovato's early songs, including "Heart Attack" and "Two Pieces." He later served as one of her vocal producers.
• The song played during the trailer for Lovato's 2021 four-part YouTube documentary Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil and also features in the film itself. The series serves as a companion piece to Lovato's Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over album.
• Lovato released two previous singles that she wrote in the period between her first relapse and her overdose. She penned "Sober" after realizing she'd developed an addiction to hard drugs and "Anyone" four days before her near-fatal overdose.
• The music video is a complete re-enactment of Demi Lovato's July 24, 2018 drug overdose. The singer, who co-directed the clip with her Dancing with the Devil docuseries collaborator Michael D. Ratner, even wears the same green jacket and the same style of hair and makeup from that near-fatal night.