In drug and alcohol rehab perfectionism can be a deadly foe. In other areas of life, perfectionism may be the cause of grief and lack of improvement. It may lead to procrastination and sour relationships. But when you are trying to stop drug and alcohol abuse perfectionism can lead to something far far worse.
Perfectionism is drug and alcohol rehab leads to looking for the "perfect" center with the "perfect" program. Even if they find something that gets close to this, often it is rejected as all the other clients are "different" from the perfectionist, and have "different" problems. Then if somehow they do choose a program and actually go there, they can't change anything in their life until a very long list of things all have to take similtaneously.
There are several ways out of the perfectionism trap in drug and alcohol rehab. One is with using well defined good questions. WHAT ONE THING CAN I DO TODAY TO GAIN MORE SKILL IN MY ABILITY TO BECOME AND STAY SOBER? By sticking with one thing and one day, you can actually break the paralysis of perfectionism.
The other is to put in an 80% rule. Write down a checklist of what you need to do something. Once you have 3/4 or more of the list checked off, you procede immediately. The rest you will figure out along the way, or don't really matter anyway. You will make some mistakes, but you will make mistakes even if you mange to get all of your list checked off. You will just get there a lot sooner and move on to other problems.
Perfectionism is a major cause of stress. Stress leads to drug and alcohol use. Stress and perfectionism can be dealt with. Look for a drug and alcohol rehab center that has 3/4 of what you need. Then get it there and move forward in your life.
