I cringe at the word perfection. But I think I get what you are saying and what it means to you.
I think part of my cringe stems from the fact the that I had multiple active addictions when I first got into recovery. It was shockingly disappointing and surprising to me how little my life improved when I stopped drugging and drinking. I white knuckled it "perfectly" for awhile. But I was still all sorts of a mess.
I respect that relapse is not part of many people's recoveries, and that ultimately I had to stop acting out on my addictions in order to grow in recovery. So ultimately yes, I have to be perfect in my commitment to not use again. But I was unable to separate "using" in one area from using in another.
So maybe that is why "perfection" means something else, or why I feel intimidated by it when it pertains to my recovery.
I'd get clean in one area and ramp up using in another. Relapse came in many forms for me. I could stop drinking and it still wasn't perfect. Even when I did relapse, I wasn't merely chasing my tail, I was figuring out, discovering and coming to terms with how addiction played out in my life, and what ultimately it was going to take to address it.
I guess what I am getting at is for me, not drinking perfectly and calling it recovery amounts to me putting my fingers in my ears and singing "la la la la, I'm doing perfectly well"
I know that is NOT what you are saying, I am just commenting in my reaction to the term "perfect" not disagreeing with your point.