One Day at a Time in Al-Anon:
Setting our goals too high can lead to frustration and worse. The perfectionist, clinging stubbornly to her ideas of what life ought to be, often has difficulty grasping both the acceptance and detachment elements of the Al-Anon program. She demands too much of herself and of the alcoholic partner.
This compulsive drive for perfection — an unrealistic idealism — can be a neurotic symptom as difficult to deal with as the alcoholic’s compulsion to drink. It makes big problems out of little ones, increases our despair when things don’t work out as we hope they will and hampers us in coming to terms with life as it is.
Today’s Reminder:
I will learn to yield a little here and there and accept what I may be impelled to challenge and resist. I will try to achieve a balanced kind of detachment which is not abandonment of or disinterest in the alcoholic, but a decision not to let myself be touched too deeply by happenings that are essentially unimportant.
“To adapt ourselves with a quiet mind to what is possible and attainable, therein lies happiness.”