Perfectionism + Addiction

When New York Times bestselling author Holly Whitaker asks you if you could maybe answer a few questions from her noted recovery community about the intersection of addiction and perfectionism, you say YES. Below are those questions, along with my answers.

1. How do you define perfectionism? What do we get wrong about it most? Do you think perfectionism can be useful?

There are certain words, words like trauma, grief, love – that are better left described than defined because they don’t fit inside a definition. Perfectionism is one such word.

Perfectionism is an innate, natural human impulse.

Perfectionism reflects our healthy desire to actualize the ideals we imagine in our minds and hearts. Experiencing the impulse toward perfectionism is part of being human, hence why it persists across time and culture.  

One thing we get wrong about perfectionism is thinking it only shows up in “Type A” ways, like being super organized, for example.

We animate our perfectionistic impulses through our thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and interpersonal relationships. For example, have you ever wanted to feel “perfectly over” someone? That’s a kind of emotional perfectionism.

Perfectionism is powerful; it’s a force. Like any power, perfectionism is dichotomous in nature; it can be constructive or destructive, depending on how you manage it. And yes, perfectionism can absolutely be useful.

2. Do you see a correlation between substance misuse and perfectionism? What does that look like and what would be your best piece of advice to a perfectionist who is trying to change their relationship with a substance? Work on the perfectionism or work on the drinking? 

The short answer is 100% absolutely all the way yes, I see a correlation. The longer version is that perfectionism isn’t your problem.

Your problem is that you respond to missteps with punishment instead of compassion.

I define punishment as creating more pain for yourself in an effort to motivate you to stop or start something. So punishment can look like withholding something you know is good for you, or continuing to engage in something you know will hurt you – both approaches generate pain.

An important note on self-punishment is that it’s usually unconscious. It’s not like you make a mistake and then literally say to yourself, “Okay, time to punish myself;” our relationship to punishment is much more subtle and nuanced than that.

Here’s what a punitive response to perfectionism might look like with regards to substance misuse:

Ugh, I said I wasn’t gonna drink last night and I did. I ruined my sobriety streak. Again. Now I feel like a piece of shit. Again. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can’t I do something so simple? Ugh, I’m never gonna get it together. Might as well just drink tonight since I have nothing to lose now.

Instead of examining a misstep from a place of curiosity about how to better support yourself next time, you immediately punish yourself through negative self-talk (which makes you feel worse), drinking more (which makes you feel worse), and not doing anything kind or restorative for yourself (which also makes you feel worse).

You don’t heal yourself by hurting yourself. Punishment doesn’t work.

The goal of a punishment is to make you fell bad. When we feel bad, we’re way less motivated to make healthy choices. The best advice I can offer here is to replace punishment with self-compassion.

Self-compassion is a 3-step resilience building skill – it’s not just being really polite to yourself and it’s definitely not letting yourself off the hook.

Self-compassion strengthens you so that you have the energy to hold a bigger perspective and engage real support. Self-compassion isn’t a “nice little extra” or a “bonus points” kind of thing. Self-compassion is a mandatory skill you need to learn if you want to grow.

Without self-compassion, the best you can hope for is stagnation. Work on replacing punishment with self-compassion and the rest will begin to fall into place.

3. I talked at length in my book about how failure is mostly a celebrated thing, but that when it comes to addiction and recovery, failure isn’t failure, it’s relapse, it’s return to use, it’s Day 1 again. Let’s pretend I’m your client, and I made it ten months (or ten years) and then drank again, and I’m at the bottom of my shame spiral and feeling like I just threw it all away and can’t trust myself at all and I’m doomed to drink forever. What do I do with all that? 

If you were my client, I’d walk you through a self-compassionate response.

First, that would look like allowing you to feel like shit and acknowledging that you’re in a serious amount of pain.

It hurts to fall. I wouldn’t pretend like you didn’t fall.

I’d help you pay witness to your pain, to face it, to name it. I’d also do something simple and kind for you to model what I hope you’d do for yourself outside of my office. I might ask you if you need some water, maybe offer you a blanket. This is the “kindness” step in Dr. Kristen Neff’s 3 step model for self-compassion. To be kind to yourself, you must let yourself see that you’re in pain, then offer yourself some simple comfort (affectionate words, a moment alone, a bath).

I’d be totally transparent about what I was doing and why; I’d say something like, “What I’m doing now is the kindness part of self-compassion - this is what you’ll need to do for yourself when you leave my office.”

Next, we’d talk about how everyone falls. We’d discuss how common your problem (the relapse) is – how normal, natural, and human it is. Maybe we’d listen to stories of other people’s relapses. Again, with total transparency, I’d tell you, “This is the “embrace your common humanity” step in Neff’s 3-step self-compassion framework.”

As part of the ‘embrace your common humanity’ step, I’d encourage you to let go of the somewhat narcissistic notion that you are the only human being on the planet who has ever had to deal with a relapse.

I’d remind you just how regular and common your problem is, thereby emphasizing that you’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with you – this is hard because it’s hard. It’s hard for everyone. It’s a common problem in humanity.

We’d reframe a relapse as an opportunity to better understand where you need more support instead of seeing a relapse as starting back at square one, or as proof that you’re eternally doomed.

Lastly, we’d practice “mindfulness,” another leg on Neff’s stool of self-compassion.

Instead of asking yourself, “How do I stop feeling so much shame about this,” I’d encourage you to ask yourself a more useful question, “What else do I also feel?” Mindfulness is about making space for your whole experience, not just the part that’s resonating with you at the moment. You acknowledge your difficult feeling and let it stay with you, and you also scan your emotional landscape for other feelings and thoughts you may not be immediately in touch with.  

Are you looking forward to dinner with a friend soon?

Are you feeling relieved that at least you’re talking to someone about your relapse?

Is any part of you proud of the sober experiences you’ve been building?

Are you feeling curious, angry, playful, sensual, resentful?

Is your sense of humor intact?

Are you heartbroken?

Mindfulness is not about trying to get yourself in a positive or neutral space as much as it’s about recognizing that one feeling does not define your entire experience (or, if you’re in an extra dramatic space, one feeling does not define your entire personhood). By asking yourself what else you also feel, you don’t allow one singular feeling to eclipse the entirety of your experience and overtake your identity. Feelings are just feelings, they’re not who you are.

4. A reader asked us: “I had sober sex for the first time, and it felt not sober. What tf was that? It was scary.” Walk us through how a statement like that ties back to perfectionism, and what we do with experiences like this.

When your baseline for a long time is being fucked up, and then you get sober, being sober feels fucked up.

It’s normal to experience a steep learning curve when it comes to engaging in activities that you once couldn’t have imagined doing sober. Think: Thanksgiving dinner, a first date, sex, going on vacation, cooking a meal without a glass of wine on the counter to sip from.

Let’s take the reader’s word, “scary.” I’m not sure what they mean by that.

If they’re not sure what they mean by “scary” either, here’s an exercise to try. Think of emotions as the body of a bird. The feeling you’re most in touch with, in this case, “scared” is the center body of the bird. Your job is to find the wings of the bird. Let me explain.

It’s rare that we’re ever feeling just one thing; there are usually at least two other feelings attached to the experience - these are the wings of the bird.

For example, let’s say you feel ashamed. Instead of asking yourself, “how do I get rid of this feeling?” a better question is to ask yourself, “what else do I also feel?” What are the wings of the bird?

After you mine your emotional landscape for emotions other than “ashamed,” you might discover that you feel desire. You desire connection. That’s one wing.

You might also discover that you feel ready. Even though you made a mistake and that mistake is painful - you still feel ready to heal.

Feelings become threatening when they saturate our experience. We feel emotionally claustrophobic when that happens because there’s this one, huge, painful feeling that’s coloring all of our thoughts and actions and making us feel stuck. What helps us to feel unstuck is realizing that there’s more to the story than just the one big terrible feeling.

Find the wings of the bird and you’ll fly away from stuckness.

Once you increase awareness of what you’re feeling, you can begin to examine how that constellation of feelings does or does not match your expectations.

Let’s go back to the reader’s question. Let’s imagine that they discover that having sober sex felt scary, exciting, and embarrassing. I’d be curious about how that set of emotions conflicts with their expectation of what they think sober sex should feel like. Perhaps they expect sober sex to feel empowering? Energizing? Easy? Natural? Sweet?

Discrepancies in experience and expectation can help you understand two things.

One: discrepancies can help you understand your true wants (for example, if you felt scared, alone, and unsafe, and you can identify that you want to feel more assured, connected, and safe).

And two: discrepancies can help you understand that you’re holding yourself to an idealized version of an experience (perfectionism).

The reader may be encountering emotional perfectionism here; consciously or not, they hold an ideal in their mind about what they’re supposed to feel.

When our experiences don’t match the expectations we’re holding, we tend to think something is wrong. But there’s no right way to feel just like there’s no right way to laugh. Emotional perfectionism is one of the 5 types of perfectionism I highlight in my work.  

5. Reader question: “How can I stop thinking about my sobriety only in terms of how many days sober I have under my belt?”

Such a great question. You stop thinking about your sobriety in terms of sober days by holding a distinction between goals and intentions.

A goal is a clear demarcation of quantifiable achievement; an intention is more sophisticated.

Intentions are not expressed through what you do but how you do it, not if you do it but why you do it.

Your intention is the energy and purpose behind your striving. Your goal is what you’re striving for (30 days of sobriety, for example).

Focus more on the intention than the goal.  

It’s not sober days you necessarily want, it’s what you imagine the sober days will create a path for: a lifestyle in which you feel at ease with yourself.

You want to enjoy your life, build quality relationships, pursue work that matters to you, take pleasure in being alive, give yourself a chance to grow, learn, celebrate, etc. These are your intentions (I obviously don’t know what your intentions are, but fill in whatever feels right to you).

Counting days can be helpful in offering you a sense of progression and pride over your goal, but if you were sober for 3,000 days and were still living in a way that led to poor quality relationships, no enjoyment, no growth, no learning, no celebration, etc. – well then, those 3,000 days wouldn’t represent much progress.

Just like it’s not the number of conversations you have with someone that builds connection, it’s the quality of conversation - it’s not the number of days of sobriety that matter most, it’s what you fill those days up with.

Instead of asking, “Am I achieving my goal?” ask a more useful question, “Am I honoring my intention.”

6. Reader question: “If I’m not working on myself continuously I feel bad. How does always striving relate to addiction?”

Addiction is about being trapped in the mentality that there’s only one way to get what you need, which is to use. For example, “I cannot possibly get through the holidays without drinking.”

Always striving to grow through “doing” relates to addiction because you see only one way to be your best self, which is to be incessantly progressing.

Incessantly progressing leads to burn out. You need rest. Literally, for survival - like water and air, rest is a need.

Those who are truly committed to bringing out their best embrace rest; they rest well. Just like you have to open yourself up to the idea that it might be possible to go to a holiday party and not drink, you have to open yourself up to the idea that resting is not a reflection of you hitting “pause” or “stop” on your growth; it is in fact the opposite. 

7. Reader question: “What good perfectionist can’t even do the dishes?” 

There’s a saying in the therapy world: 90% of questions are statements in disguise.

So, for example, when someone asks, “Do I look okay in this?” What they’re really stating is: I’d love some reassurance about the way I look right now.

Since speaking in statements is super awkward, we pose our statements as questions. The statement I hear in your question is: “I’m frustrated because I feel like I can’t even get the most basic tasks right.” I also hear a punitive tone; I’m guessing you’re in punishment mode.

Do me a favor and forget everything you think you know about perfectionism.

Perfectionism isn’t about getting all the dishes done, being punctual, orderly, or rigid; perfectionism is kaleidoscopic.

It’s beautiful, it’s energizing, it’s a fucking nightmare, it shows up in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons. It can help you or hurt you depending on how you manage it.

I detail 5 types of perfectionists and 5 types of perfectionism in the book.

But if you don’t get my book, if you never encounter my work again, if you hear nothing else from this response, please hear this:

No matter who you are or what you do, perfectionist or not, “alcoholic” or not: if you punish yourself, you will stay stuck in your suffering.

8. “How does neurodiversity, specifically ADHD, interact with perfectionism (and addiction).”  This was another reader question and it was the question I had throughout reading your book as well; I kept wondering if this information could be applied to people with ADHD or do we need a separate book?

Lol on the separate book part. So this is a really interesting question. There’s no quick, bullet point-y answer. In the broadest sense, people tend to develop addictions when they don’t know how else to manage their mental health. We self-medicate, essentially.

The more you know about mental illnesses or maladaptive patterns, the more agency you feel over managing your mental health (thereby decreasing the likelihood for you to self-medicate through addiction).

Personal agency and motivation operate in tandem.

ADHD, however, can be hard to diagnose in the therapist’s office because the conditions for therapy (one-on-one attention, guided conversations, a somewhat novel/stimulating environment, etc.) are the same conditions under which symptoms of ADHD are less likely to present. In other words, a lot of adults are dealing with ADHD and don’t know it, even if they’re in therapy.

The “messy perfectionist” is the closest perfectionist personality profile to ADHD. Messy perfectionists tend to start a million projects and love to have their hands in several pots at once, but when they encounter the imperfect tedium of the middle, they may abandon the process.

For messy perfectionists, abandoning tasks is not about a lack of ability to hold attention. Messy perfectionists abandon tasks because they’re trying to abrogate the loss that comes with committing to something.

You know that saying, “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything?” Messy perfectionists tend to reject that saying. ADHD is different.  

In ADHD, symptoms like difficulty focusing or bringing a task to completion, frequently interrupting others, difficulty engaging quietly in leisure activities, or feeling a chronic, internal sense of relentlessness – all these symptoms stem from the way your brain works as opposed to the perspective you’re holding.

This is an oversimplification of the difference: If you change a messy perfectionist’s perspective, their behavior is likely to change. If you change the perspective of someone suffering from ADHD, their behavior is less likely to change in the sense that they’re still going to be impulsive and inattentive at times, BUT, importantly, their willingness to connect to support changes, and they can make behavioral changes that help them manage ADHD (drinking less coffee, taking medication, being conscious of which social settings exacerbate undesirable symptoms, etc.).  

In short, my book will not help people better manage or understand ADHD.     

9. Finally, my favorite concept in your book is the one about “trying parties” where, for instance, you had a party with your family for trying to write a book, before any significant progress was made (book was done, book was edited, etc.). I’ve never in my life celebrated just trying something; only milestones. Can you talk about this and why this is such a powerful suggestion and practice? How might someone in recovery from addiction use a “trying party”? And how might they work with a thought like "if I celebrate half-assing it I'll reinforce half-assery" (my words).

Leading a self-defined life means that you define what is important to you. If you don’t define what’s important for yourself, you’ll default to the culture’s priorities: money, rank, efficiency/speed, role achievement (wife, mother, homeowner, famous person, etc.) and so on.  

What’s considered “normal” to celebrate in our culture is based on culture’s priorities, not our own priorities. We celebrate promotions, winning, best-seller lists, speed (30 under 30), balloons that spell out “1 million followers!” Nothing’s wrong with celebrating any of that stuff.

What’s not great is when something is important to you and it’s not celebrated.

Celebration is a signal to yourself and the universe: this matters to me whether there’s a greeting card for this or not, this is a big deal, this is worthy of acknowledgement, pause, cake!

Celebration builds momentum around your efforts; it’s a beautiful way of reinforcing your values to yourself.

I decided that one thing I value, what makes me proud of myself, is trying really hard at something. That’s why I had a trying party in the midst of writing my book.

To be totally honest, I don’t know that I would’ve actually thrown a party if my daughter wasn’t there to see it. I had this moment of mini-panic while writing the book, of like, “If I only celebrate her when she wins, what is that teaching her about the courage to try? That it’s not worth celebrating courage unless that courage is notarized through external achievement? If I only celebrate myself when I’m done, what is that teaching her about when to feel proud of yourself? What is only celebrating when I’m done teaching her about the importance of enjoying the process?”

I needed the push to celebrate, and I get that someone reading this might need that, too.

It can be hard to feel entitled to honor what matters to you, especially when that value isn’t necessarily shared by others, or when you’re not moving through the process of sobriety “perfectly.”

To move through the thought of “If I celebrate half-assing it, I’ll reinforce half-assery,” you might think about what you’re reinforcing if you only celebrate 100%-ness.

If executing on your goals perfectly is a true value of yours, then go do a bunch of shit you already know how to do and methodically repeat your results. Many people live that way and are very satisfied with their lives. If that doesn’t make you happy, then perhaps you don’t care about superficial perfection as much as you think you do. Perhaps you care more about rising to the challenge of doing something you don’t know how to do.

It may also be helpful to remember that celebrating the process (trying) and celebrating the outcome (achieving) aren’t mutually exclusive. You can do both.

Thanks to everyone who wrote it. And thanks to you, Holly, for all of it. X

Katherine Morgan Schafler is an NYC-based psychotherapist, author, and speaker. For more of her work: get her book, follow her on Instagram, subscribe to her newsletter, or visit her site.