People fall. They fall into bad habits and the effects of that are far-reaching. The reasons for the self-destructive habits that people fall into are numerous. It mystifies some as to why one person stumbles and is never able to get up and the next person will completely avoid building a serious habit.

Serious bad habit building occurs in the life of the believer and the unbeliever alike. You might know the woman who seems to have been born with a body that has absolutely zero resistance to the effects that alcohol can have on a person, but who loves to drink it regularly. Or you might know the guy like me who never could stand the smell of it on other people, let alone the taste and who consequently never drinks it.

Sooner or later the problem boils down to the way a person deals with temptation. You can read all the self-help books or you can go to seminars and help groups, but even the most aggressively educated person won't necessarily do what's righteous in God's eyes and make the correct choice when they should.

A lot of the time, the long term effects of the gradually building habit are "concealed" so to speak, from the very person who is undergoing a personal transformation. I'm betting most people come to a realization one day and ask themselves how they got to where they're at and have to take time, or get help to figure it out.

If we look at just how people get into these habitual black holes, we have to remember that people have a lot of different experiences. I will let the scriptures speak to that later.

Younger people, because they're inexperienced in life sometimes have a tendency to think that they're impervious to the effects of time. Old age seems such a long way off that they often think that they have plenty of time "later on" to change their behavior. If they had the experience that age can bring they might know that our ability to deal with the wrong choices we make can get more strained, and sometimes the mistakes we make have a way of building hard to get over obstacles that get higher as time passes.

Some people believe that they can just shut desire for alcohol, drugs or lustful and impure thinking "off" anytime they want to, like a light switch. The outgrowth of that mistaken thinking is that they decide that since they can do away with their habit any old day, that they'll just do it tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and they don't think they've hit any walls so they just keep repeating the process until things begin to really fall apart.

That in itself is a type of denial. Another type of denial comes when a person is slapped in the face with something about the habit they've formed which makes them uncomfortable, so they just reject whatever it is out of hand in their minds. Even though the problem is staring them in the heart, they strain against the reality of it.

You can hear popular radio talk show hostess Dr. Laura Schlessinger talk about a "moral compass." The moral compass is real. If an individual doesn't own one, they have nothing which will prevent them from sailing into uncharted and dangerous waters. One must have a solid foundation of truth to stand on. Jesus Christ is that true, solid, steadfast foundation. His teachings bear that out if one will accept them.

Drug and alcohol abusers have acquiesced to something different. As time and the abuse goes by, their bodies adjust to the substance of their choice and they typically want or "need" to increase the level of drugs in order to affect their higher nervous system and achieve the same "high." That is diminishing course wherein the abuser starts taking in huge quantities or the drug just to get through the day.

You may have noticed that I've avoided calling this process an addiction. I've done that because the way that that word is perceived in society today brings with it a "pass" on personal responsibility and lays the blame on the "drug tolerance gene" or the "shopper's gene."

You see, just as with drug users, somebody who makes the habit of looking at pornography for example, starts to become acclimated to the way it affects them because they expose themselves daily to it. The "thrill" or stimulation they once got out of it at the beginning fades and they start to look at more gradually explicit material. Unfortunately for themselves and for society this has sometimes, as in the case of serial killer Ted Bundy, even escalated the fulfilling of that replacement stimulation by brutally killing young women.

That is the extreme, to be sure, but people fulfill the "extreme" of their habits by overdosing every day, and when people are unsuccessful in a try to quit their habit, their failure can quickly lead to feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. A self-fulfilling prophesy begins to unfold because they believe they don't have the ability to stop their habit and start verbalizing their feelings. The failure to change the way they behave may even cause them to rebel against the idea and declare the habit as something which "helps" them.

As in the rest of our lives, emotions can be a real motivating force. My dad once told me as a very young man that either I would control my emotions or my emotions would control me. Once they become aroused, our ability to intellectualize things or reason them out can be overcome it we let it happen.

The emotions become stronger than our reasoning and end up winning out. People often make bad, emotionally driven choices like looking at porn for example as a "way to relieve stress." How many T.V. or movies have you seen an actor in a stressful situation say, "I need a drink," and everybody winks and laughs.

These are dangerous places to be. The will to survive, given to us by God, is strong. When we reach a place where we "just don't care about that anymore," they often get swallowed up by their habit. People who've reached this part of the process of habit building have a very, very difficult time stopping their habit. At this point, it's valuable to remember the words of the Holy Spirit, given to us by the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 10:13, which reads;

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."

This verse is a blessing to us who believe, and an inroad for discussion of Jesus and His saving grace with those in a serious habit who don't know Him, but this isn't easy. It may be a simple truth, but it isn't necessarily easy. It took some time build the habit and it will likely take time to return themselves to righteous living.

The most habitual drug abusers are usually people who've been without any type of moral foundation. Their recovery begins when they understand and acknowledge that their habit is morally wrong.

The next step comes when a person accepts the fact that they are riddled with negative feelings. After that, understanding those feelings and "releasing" them is very important. Hostility or bitterness can be a huge obstacle to overcome where healing is concerned, and it's incredibly important for people in recovery to forgive and ask for forgiveness from friends, from themselves and most importantly, from God.

It all comes down to a choice. A person has to decide that they are going to make a decision that is best for them. Nothing positive and lasting will be achieved before that occurs. Almost anybody can stop a bad habit for a short time. I talked with a professional man I've been acquainted with for over twenty years. He has had a cocaine and alcohol habit for around that amount of time too. He wrecked his expensive boat while driving intoxicated and decided he may have a problem. He told my mother and I a few days ago that he had been sober for the 14 days since the incident. He has done this before. He'll likely do it again. The real problem is longterm maintenance.

The last step to recovery is an unending one. One a person stops their habit, they need to take an everyday inventory of their life. If they stumble, they need to own up to it and stand back up---quickly, and not beat themselves up about it.

Habit abusers need to realize that they will never be back at 100%. They were never at 100% before they built their habit. To have stopped the habit means that someone has stopped contributing to the destruction of their own life. All bad habits leave some type of physical or emotional scar, or both.

Life is better when we form habits that are uplifting and enriching, depending on God for guidence and answers. This sometimes requires patience, but going to God daily, in prayer with Him and dependence on Him, submitting all things to Him, will bring about the greatest habits of our lives.

James 1:12-16 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.