Perfectionism isn't a personality quirk — it's a documented relapse risk, and it doesn't switch off just because you got sober. In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony unpacks how the same engine that drove the using — the need to be liked, to fit in, to perform, to be "the funny guy" — quietly follows us into recovery and sets up the next slip.

We get into the difference researchers draw between perfectionistic strivings (high personal standards, which can be healthy) and perfectionistic concerns (fear of mistakes, dread of judgment, self-worth on the line) — and why the second one is the one that hurts you. Anthony walks through the abstinence violation effect: how it isn't the slip that relapses you, it's the shame spiral about the slip. He shares his own story of not even recognizing he was in a relapse — telling his story in a 12-step room while still in it — and the all-or-nothing "might as well burn it all down" thinking that turns one bad moment into a full return to use.

This is lived experience, not clinical advice. But the tools Anthony names are evidence-based: catching all-or-nothing thoughts (a CBT move), self-compassion (backed by meta-analysis and RCTs showing it weakens maladaptive perfectionism), and deliberately doing one recovery thing imperfectly on purpose — the "B-minus" practice that teaches your brain you can fall short and survive it.

If you've ever skipped the meeting because you couldn't do it right, quit the journal after one missed day, or worn the "I've got it together" mask while quietly drowning — this one's for you. Recovery doesn't ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be honest.

This week's one thing: Do one recovery thing imperfectly, on purpose. Notice that you survive it.

Recovering Out Loud is produced by ROL Productions. Anthony shares as a person in long-term recovery — peer to peer, lived experience only, never as a clinician or expert.

Why the pain, not why the addiction? An honest, peer look at the trauma model of recovery.

This week it's a solo one. I sit with two thinkers who reshaped how we talk about addiction — Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) — and I try to do the thing recovery content usually skips: take what's genuinely useful, and stay honest about where it gets oversold.

Maté's line — the question isn't why the addiction, it's why the pain — did more to pull shame out of addiction than almost anything this century. It reframes you from a bad person into a hurt person, and for a lot of us that's the first door out of self-hatred. Van der Kolk adds that trauma doesn't just live in your memory, it lives in the body and nervous system — which is why cravings and relapse aren't a simple willpower problem.

I also get personal about what trauma actually is (it's not only the "big" events — it's how your body stored what happened), a grade-four moment I still carry, and the long work of forgiving myself, including after a relapse that cost me what I thought was seven and a half years.

Then the other side. Critics like Stanton Peele and Nick Haslam point out that most people with addiction weren't traumatized as children, and most people who were traumatized don't become addicted — trauma raises risk, it doesn't write destiny. Richard McNally argues some of the science gets stated more strongly than the evidence supports. The danger for us in recovery: "my trauma made me this way" can flip from liberating to a life sentence. The honest frame — your pain is real, and you're still not sentenced by it. Understanding why you hurt is a starting line, not a verdict.

Two questions I leave you with: – Does understanding my pain free me, or give me a place to hide? – My pain is real, and I'm still responsible for ______.

Recovering Out Loud is peer-to-peer lived experience, not medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling, please reach out to a professional or a trusted person in your life.

Surrender sounded like giving up — until it became the thing that finally let me stop losing.

For years I thought surrender meant waving the white flag: defeat, quitting, rolling over. My ego hated it. This solo episode is me trying to do what nobody did for me early on — actually explain what surrender is, what it isn't, and how you practice it on an ordinary Tuesday.

I get into the difference between compliance and surrender — a distinction the psychiatrist Dr. Harry Tiebout drew back in the 1950s. Compliance is going through the motions while privately keeping a date in your head for when you'll go back. Surrender is the internal shift where you stop reserving that exit. I was compliant through all three of my rehabs before I ever actually surrendered — and from the outside, the two look identical. Only you know the difference.

I talk about my third time in treatment, the moment I handed over my drugs and said I'm done; why real surrender tends to show up right when the ego runs out of moves; and why it's never one-and-done. It's a state you keep returning to — in traffic, in a resentment, in a craving, in the things about my own health I can't control right now. I share the metaphor a therapist gave me: treat your anxiety, fear, and depression like guests knocking at the door. You can board it up, or you can invite them in for coffee and watch them leave on their own.

And the paradox at the center of all of it: the more I surrender, the more freedom, peace, and quiet I actually get.

If you're white-knuckling right now, here's the honest starting point — compliance counts. It gets you in the door. Surrender can come later.

Recovery is simple. It's just not easy.