To put it in context, the phrase ‘progress not perfection’ is taken from the book Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5 entitled ‘How it Works’. The actual phrase is ‘ We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection’
Context
Like a lot of phrases and sayings in recovery, putting this phrase in context can help to understand its real meaning, and how it can be helpful to people.
Early members of Alcoholics Anonymous used to have a phrase they would say to each other, ‘ Don’t try and be a Saint by Thursday’. The intent apparently was to try and make sure that people didn’t get spiritually lightheaded and were able to practise the spiritual principles of recovery in such a way that both practicable and realistic on a day-to-day basis.
Direction
The other benefit of both of these phrases were that they could help to anchor people in the realisation that they were travelling in a particular direction, rather than seeking a permanent solution or an unattainable goal.
Whilst people in recovery seek sobriety, once found, the real struggle often becomes how to live with yourself sober, whilst re-engaging with the real world. It’s unlikely that anyone would pretend that this is easy, but one of the determining factors that makes it possible is to realize that recovery is a process not an event. That seems to be what both of these sayings are really pointing towards.
One of the reasons this is important in recovery, is because often there is a tendency to present the tools and experience of the 12 step programme almost in the form of an equation or a formula.
People are often told if you do x, y and z then you will get sober and stay sober. Whilst this is dubious advice at best, it ignores the reality that people get sober and stay sober in their own time frame. The realisation that recovery is a process, and that that process is different for everyone, is a big part of the freedom that AA and other 12 step fellowships can give people.
Protective Thinking
People who are not alcoholics in recovery are often at a loss to understand why someone who is an alcoholic either can’t stop drinking or simply doesn’t want to. An understanding of alcoholism as an illness can take time and patience.
An important part of the 12 step programme is to give people time to understand their own alcoholism and make sense of it. AA meets people where they are, not where other people want them to be.
This is really important in terms of giving people the freedom to get to a place where they cannot live either with alcohol or without it, and where they become more willing to move in the direction that AA offers, rather than the direction of active alcoholism.
Step 2 in the AA programme talks about being restored to sanity, and people will obviously interpret this in different ways.
One important aspect to bear in mind is that people’s denial of their alcoholism, and as such that continued drinking, is effectively based on what is known as protective thinking, rather than simple insanity, clinical or otherwise !
Generally speaking people who are alcoholics seek to protect alcohol, because of the fear of losing it. For many people it is the only thing that they believe is really holding them together, and the fear of living without it is too overwhelming to contemplate, whatever the consequences.
This leads to a seriously dangerous, but understandable, state of protective thinking both around alcohol and the persons behaviour and lifestyle.
One of the goals in recovery can be to get to a place where someone can understand the nature of the alcoholism as it has affected them and their lives. Often this involves seeing the naturalness of their drinking, their behaviours and their life in the context of protective thinking.
This is different to the question of why am I an alcoholic, which many people do ask. Someone understanding their alcoholism in this context however can give them a real sense of self acceptance, which in turn can free them from a lot of the guilt and fear that has characterised their life, both drunk and sober.
You Are Not Your Behaviour.
The sense of separating out a person from their behaviour is crucial both for self acceptance and acceptance of other people. It isn’t a cop out, in fact quite the opposite, as it allows people to challenge someone’s behaviour without challenging them as a person.
Whilst quite an involved subject, it does go to the heart of unconditional love, and a sense that you can come to love a person whilst at the same time not accepting their behaviour and not letting their behaviour determine your life.
This can be true both in terms of someone who is an active alcoholic, and someone who is in recovery yet still has to deal with people whose behaviour is either difficult or problematic.
In this sense it is important to realise that someones behaviour, for better or worse, is an expression of their inner world.
The phrase ‘hurt people hurt people’ is often used in recovery, again not as an excuse but as an understanding of the fact that people in pain ,emotionally and spiritually, lash out at other people because of their own pain.
The sense of understanding behaviour is crucial in that people in recovery can change their inner world, and as such change their behaviour. Failure to change someone’s inner world, means that either their behaviour doesn’t change, or if it does change eventually there will be a conflict between the two that will need resolving.
Defects / Assets
The talk of defects of character runs through most AA literature and most sharing at meetings. People sometimes seem to feel comfortable with a slightly self-destructive view of who they are as people, almost as an explanation or a reason for their alcoholism.
Understanding that alcoholism is an illness, and that people have the freedom to explore what that means to them, includes their own sense of self as a person, and their behaviour as a person, for better or worse !
The idea of progress rather than perfection does root this idea in someone’s humanity. It seems to be pointing out the fact that both life and recovery is a process, not an event, and that the focus of recovery, especially through the 12 step programme, is around the process of rebuilding someone’s inner world, allowing them to live at peace with themselves and with the world around them.
A significant part of the talk around both character defects and character assets can make this process much harder for one simple reason. It often tends to focus on judgement.
Often this is reinforcing a sense of judgement in someone that is already there, and therefore can make it feel more comfortable. However this is an illusion.
Realising that you are not your behaviour, and understanding the reasons for your behaviour, is critical to getting a real sense of self acceptance, and genuine long lasting freedom.
Perfection
Striving for perfection can almost seem a strange goal for people, given that it is probably unattainable in human life, and the question therefore begs what people mean by it.
There can be many reasons, but perhaps the most common one tends to be that although people talk in terms of perfection, what they are actually looking for is a sense of certainty,
Human nature does seem to crave certainty, as witnessed by the appeal of fundamentalism of any type, be it in religion, politics or 12 step recovery. Certainty can provide the illusion of safety, again something that most people seem to crave.
Seeing recovery as a process means that this illusion of certainty, this illusion of safety, can be seriously challenged and replaced with a much healthier, more human approach, that allows someone to live their life in reality, and come to their own understanding as to what that actually means in a spiritual context.
Self-Acceptance not Self -Improvement
The idea of self-improvement has almost swept through society in the last few decades, claiming that becoming your best self is the final objective. The problem with this is that it becomes a treadmill, where someone is constantly striving for something that is unattainable because it doesn’t exist.
Self-acceptance on the other hand, is the real route to freedom. Although it can sound ridiculously easy, getting a level of self acceptance can prove extremely difficult.
The value of the 12 step programme in many ways is that it is focused on accepting the reality of who you are as a person, your alcoholism as an illness, taking responsibility for past acts, and rebuilding your life in a more loving and caring direction.
The freedom of this is immense, and perhaps the chief benefit of 12 step recovery. Key to it, is this phrase of progress not perfection. This isn’t just semantics, it’s a clear statement that recovery and life is a process, something that people learn through their own life experience.
If someone is open to their own truth, however painful it may be, it is inevitably going to take time for them to come to that sense of understanding and acceptance. Giving people time to heal and process whatever it is that has been driving them emotionally is crucial in recovery.
Progress not perfection is often taken as a clear statement that spiritually the journey has already begun, and people have a freedom to decide at what level they want to move in whatever direction make sense to them.
