There are plenty of people that have addictions of all sorts, of which, for many of those people, the type of addiction that they so have, typically seems to have been created as part of an escape mechanism, so as to deal then with some troubling part of their life. So too, bad habits, have a way of occurring for those that have not taken the time to fully examine their life, as to who and what they really are, or of the direction that they are so going, who thus just seem to inexorably fall into doing repeatedly the types of things that have no discernible benefit for them.
There are many a person who recognizes that they are addicted, or that they have bad habits, of which, they subsequently make up their mind, that they wish to dissolve themselves of the chains that are precluding them from being a better and a healthier person. For some of these people, to overcome their addiction or bad habit, they rely solely upon their will power, to simply abstain then from that which has previously been so detrimental to them, which often does work. The problem though with just the utilization of will power, no matter the strength of one’s character, is that when a person is not able to discharge fully the taste for that addiction or of that bad habit, then these things will have a habit of lingering upon a given person’s body and mind, and will, oftentimes, begin to entice that person to go back to that same bad behavior, sooner or later.
Then there are those others, that knowing that they will eventually give in to their bad habits or to their addiction, make it their point to join a specific group that deals with such, that meets then for the general purpose of exerting peer pressure upon one another, as well as to uplift one another, by bonding together in a common cause. While these types of group activities have their place and can be quite effective, they aren’t ever a complete cure-all, for people are only in those group settings for a finite amount of time, and hence have lots of hours as well as opportunities, to still get back into trouble.
While there are a myriad amount of ways to overcome addiction or bad habits, of which, each of these well-intentioned avenues do have a reasonable chance of success – we do so find that for those that are absolutely intent on overcoming that which they no longer desire to have in their life, that then the very best way to do so, is to find something higher than themselves that will thus serve to replace that addiction or bad habit with something far greater and more personally impactful for them. What we have to keep in mind is that addictions and bad habits take up a fair amount of time, and therefore that time that has been subsequently recovered needs to be put to good use, which is best accomplished by concentrating our efforts upon something that is outside of our own personal orbit, such as spiritual matters, community service, useful labor, and anything that engages our mind and efforts in the direction of being of aid to others. That is to say, to overcome addiction and bad habits, we need to find something that drives us to not only be a better and more complete person, but also that which will help make this world a better place for our participation in it.