18 Comments

Loved this--thank you. Metabolizing it all, but I write in my book DRINK about the profound link between perfectionism and women's drinking, excerpted in the Atlantic. Thank you, Holly, for being such an honest writer, thinker, human. Porous and thoughtful, I love your missives. Your fan, Ann

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Magic post. Great questions. I woke up despondent: what’s the point; why bother. And then this conversation. It is so encouraging to realise I am recovering and trying and shifting along. I’ll buy the book. You just keep writing!! Love you Holly

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This is incredibly useful, smart, encouraging, thoughtful. I’ll use it with patients and myself. I always thought perfectionism was used as a snooty hammer to knock people off pedestals, another way to hobble others, I think it’s a superpower too but this conversation opens it right up and out, I’ll buy the book too. Lovely smart work as ever Holly, you’re a gem, never stop. 💚

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I had never considered that I could be a perfectionist because I'm so terrible with paperwork coupled with the fact that I can not give up any one of my three businesses. I love and thrive through them all in equal measure but, it is very difficult to hold all three in the way that they each, and I, need to be held. This book helped me to see how much I have burdened myself with the dark side of perfectionism and how, with compassion and a complete change of perspective, I can make my Messy Parisian style of perfectionism a super powered ally instead.

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Always, love

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So good!! I have a lot of take aways from this.

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Parisian wing Messy here

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Q #8 and the answer were like oxygen to me tonight. Thank you for the honesty without a pretty bow.

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Words cannot express how grateful I am to receive your emails Holly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

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P.S I’m English. Suzanne

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Have you read Marion Woodman ( Jungian trained ) book ‘Addiction to Perfection’? An interesting take on the subject. I’d forgotten about until I read this, I was deeply affected by my relationship with my father in relation to my drinking. Maybe irrelevant to most people. Don’t know. Just trying to join in. (Introvert). Thanks for everything. Suzanne

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This was SO good Holly. Thank you for sharing this with us. So much to take away from on a topic that I generally steer clear of for my own messy and avoidant agenda to thrive.

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OMG I I'm reading this right now and it's changing my life!

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Her discussion of emotional and Parisian perfectionism is just spot on for me.

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What struck me most about this interview is how much of it you already intuitively knew and taught in Hip Sobriety School. You didn't call it perfectionism (I don't think). One of the fundamentals I learnt from you was that fuck ups and slip ups and falling down are all a part of the process of not just getting sober, but in creating a life we don't want to numb ourselves through.

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The compassion you showed yourself, the way you taught us to forgive ourselves and each other, to just be flipping kind was one of the many, many keys to the great big lock on that once impenetrable door that lead to freedom from alcohol.

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Somehow, despite being a (sober) alcoholic, perfectionism has never really been a big problem for me. But I have other issues to make up for it 😳

Recovery people might enjoy this: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/misunderstanding-alcoholics-anonymous

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