Recovery With Co-Occurring Disorders: Step Ten

Step Ten: Seek progress, not perfection

You’d think this would be obvious, but it isn’t. Something about recovery brings out the hidden perfectionist in people.

People who are actually succeeding in recovery, yet for some reason aren’t happy with it. The reason: they see themselves as falling short of some idealized version of themselves.

Recovery isn’t supposed to be self-torture. It’s about learning to feel better, not worse.

Of course, everyone (recovering or not) falls short of some goals. Many of us have deliberately set the bar too high to encourage ourselves to jump. Obviously, we don’t always reach it.

Point is, we got closer than we might have otherwise.

We all compare ourselves to other people, but really, is it helpful? Better to restrict our comparisons to our own previous achievements. If I committed to recovery eight months ago, then the only legitimate point of comparison is how I am now versus how I was then.

The rest of it is fantasy.