What is the Relationship Between Addiction and Perfectionism?

How should one approach the relationship between addictive tendencies and the perfectionist impulse to overcome them? Rupert says: ‘Be careful not to use that understanding to legitimise behaviour you deeply feel you want to cease engaging in. Don’t say “that’s just my perfectionist mind” or “there’s no real good or bad”. That would be the ego appropriating the non-dual understanding to perpetuate itself. You already know you don’t want to go on indulging in this behaviour – deal with it now. Self-enquiry is unlikely to be sufficient with these strong habits of the mind. You may need some other more relative intervention. An addiction is like a phonograph needle stuck in a groove – the groove is so deep. It’s coming from a sense of lack in you. Self-enquiry helps because we go through the sense of lack all the way back to our being, in which there is no lack. But in almost all cases, that by itself is not sufficient.’

From event 05 - 12 April, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Mandali, 5–12 April 2025

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