Progress over perfection in addiction recovery

Introduction

“Therefore be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48, TLV

This verse would perpetually run through my head when I first began connecting with the recovery community, and it still pops into my mind from time to time. It would cause a great deal of cognitive dissonance when I was given the advice of “progress over perfection”.

Learning to reconcile these two realities took some time. Now, I’ve arrived at a happy middle ground: accepting that in this realm, progress is necessary for fulfillment, while still striving to be with the Most High in the hereafter in a state that’s genuinely perfect.

As long as there is breath in our lungs, we still have the possibility to progress and develop our character. Hope is not lost. We can continue to hone our karma and spirit for our lives in the hereafter. In this article, we’ll look at how striving for perfection in this life can cause heartache and setbacks, as well as how to answer the call of Jesus to be perfect in order to please our Heavenly Father.

The perfectionist’s mindset

Many of us in addiction are intimately familiar with the struggles of perfectionist thinking. “If only things were like this, instead of as they are, I’d be…” — happy, content, whole, at peace; you can fill in the blank with that which you were looking for. In our addictions, many of us didn’t accept things as they were. We wanted to change them, to fit our conception of what perfect looked like.

The good news is that contentedness and peace are achievable for those with addictive personalities. The bad news is that I can’t give it to you. Many marketers make a lot of money doing their best to “sell you” on these promises. From my understanding, the only way to achieve serenity is to practice spiritual principles while striving to be better than you were the day before.

My hope and prayer is that this empowers you to adopt or nurture a growth mindset. We can only keep what we have by giving it away, so serving the addiction recovery community by brainstorming about “what works” to keep us clean/sober is what keeps us going.

I’m not saying I’m flawless. I’m not even free of all my addictions yet (raise your hand if you’ve experienced quitting one addiction only to want to move on and quit the next one before it’s harvest time). However, I do feel inner peace more often than I used to, as a result of following in the footsteps of the spiritual masters and telling myself that I’m just one piece of the puzzle. A microcosm experiencing the macrocosm.

My point is that Jesus spoke in parables. What He meant by “be ye perfect”, and what most addicts conception of what perfect looks like, are quite likely two different versions of “perfect” entirely. Allegedly, the word translated as “perfect” has other meanings, too. So accepting that things aren’t how you pictured “perfect” to be, but instead they’re just as they’re supposed to be given the collective’s decisions, is a good baseline for you to move forward from.

The gift of progress

We hear it all the time in the developed world. “Work hard”, “Roll your sleeves up”, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. While all of these sayings are rooted in our reliance on agriculture and the harvest of our labor, they can also be considered from the lens of progressing oneself.

When we aren’t quite where we want to be in life, the concept of progressing towards our goals seems daunting. How are we going to get from where we’re at to our desired destination?

The caveat is that most of us are focusing on getting from point A to point Z, while not properly considering all the points in between. A helpful exercise is to visualize where you want to be by a certain point, then work backwards from that vision to where you are currently. Break it down into manageable action steps you can take on a daily basis to move you closer to your goal.

Remember: it’s about experimenting. Some hypotheses won’t work out how you intended. However, if you keep trying, little by little you will start to see improvements. Compound interest is a powerful force. It can either work for you, or against you.

I’m still learning these lessons myself. Lord willing, I have a long life ahead of me. But I appreciate you for being here to collaborate with me so we can work through our challenges together. Let’s continue to trudge the road of happy destiny in our sangha of recovery.

Practical methods for focusing on progress and growth

1. Organize tasks — The “Eisenhower matrix” is an excellent organization tool for identifying which tasks to prioritize. First, write down all the tasks that are on your mind to do. Then, horizontally write “Important” and “unimportant”. On the vertical axis, write “urgent” and “not urgent”. You should now have 4 quadrants; “important-urgent” “important-not urgent” “not important-urgent” “not important-not urgent”. Categorize all the tasks you brainstormed into these four boxes. This will help you do the tasks that are most aligned with your values.

2. Be grateful for your progress — Oftentimes, we set our sights on a goal for so long, that when it finally gets here, we don’t know what to do with ourselves. So we set a new goal, without celebrating the small wins or major milestones that we prayed for so long ago. To add some perspective, remember that where you are right now is where you used to want to be. Become more appreciative for how far you’ve progressed, and be thankful that you’re still developing your story moment by moment.

3. Keep a learner’s mindset — “We learn something new everyday”. Cultivate a love of learning, but don’t stress out too much when you either feel overwhelmed about all there is to learn and/or feel like you aren’t sure where to focus your learning efforts next. The Lord has a funny way of working out our next steps before we’ve even thought to consider them, if only we’d take a moment to ask Him what he’d like us to do next.

4. Give back — In our active addiction, we were primarily concerned with finding our next fix. Once you’ve settled on sobering up or have some clean time under your belt already, it’s time to think about how you can help others. Sometimes it’s as simple as holding the door for someone whose hands are full. Other times, it involves doing service work in your community to give the message to the still sick and suffering. While you should reflect on ways you want to serve that resonate with you, be open-minded to unanticipated opportunities for you to serve that you hadn’t considered. You may not be able to attend every opportunity, but cultivating a practice of accepting invitations to community service is an excellent way to monitor the progress you’ve made along your journey.

Balancing progress in this realm with the Biblical call to be perfect

This particular topic used to cause me some serious hang-ups. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t connect with my recovery community immediately (I think — it was all a drug-filled blurry haze). I’m no theologian, nor do I see seminary school as part of my journey. So I’m sure there are many parts of the bible where I have the wrong interpretation. As a result, for the longest time, I had this ideal to be perfect which resulted in a storehouse of shame when I couldn’t live up to those expectations. It seems to be the case that many addicts house these shame wounds as well.

The way to reconcile this, seemingly, is simpler than it appears from the outside. If you focus on progressing continuously, eventually you will be perfect. Maybe (probably) not in this life, but in the hereafter. We don’t really know much about what the hereafter will be like. We can only work with what we have in the moment. And for now, acceptance of where we are along with where we’re called to go is perfect in its own way.

Conclusion

“Progress over perfection” is an adage that can help alleviate a lot of pressure from an addict. For some, it’s the difference between staying clean and going out and using. Many in the recovery community have a lot of faith, just as those who strive to please the God of the Bible do too. Even though some of their wisdom may seem contradictory on the surface, they can remain complementary depending on your interpretation.

It’s my hope that this post will help those who are struggling with reconciling their faith with their journey to being clean and sober. If you’re interested in topics related to mental health, recovery, and spirituality/religion, please consider signing up for this blog’s newsletter here for exclusive content related to the aforementioned topics. Good luck, and may the Lord bless you!