Banish Bad Habits

Introduction
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to go.
Can People Really Change?
David Lucero knows where he wants to go: He wants to go to El Paso, Texas.
David is about sixty years old, I think. For the last three months, he has been living on a sidewalk
across the street from a Greyhound bus station.
I don’t know how long David has been homeless. He is one of America’s walking wounded—
mentally ill, unable to take care of himself, unable to cope with the business of life. He is always
happy to talk, although you have to repeat yourself a few times before he can understand you:
David is losing his hearing.
One day I tried to take him to a shelter for the homeless. All he had to do was get in the pickup
truck. He had to make a decision: Get in or stay on the street. The right decision could have
started the cycle of healing and change, but it was more than David was capable of doing that
morning. He decided to stay on the street, waiting for his imaginary ride to El Paso.
When I meet people like David, I tell myself that Lewis Carroll didn’t make anything up when
he wrote Alice in Wonderland. I have met many people who are flesh and blood Cheshire Cats,
Mad Hatters, and Queens of Hearts.
I come into contact every day with people whose lives and families have been torn apart by bad
habits: people addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs; over-spenders, overeaters, and
chronic worriers; negative thinkers, procrastinators, and people who won’t forgive themselves
for something that happened long ago.
I have seen firsthand how bad habits keep ordinary people from living happier and healthier
lives. Everywhere you look, people want to know why they are unhappy. And they want to know
what they can do about it.
The talk shows offer a constant menu of miracle cures for every type of bad habit imaginable—
everything from quick weight-loss programs to 20-minute lessons in positive thinking that
promise to cure depression. We are constantly bombarded by programs that promise effortless
and immediate results: Lose weight fast, while eating as much as you want! Guaranteed to work!
Sure.
We are overwhelmed with solutions today. And the more solutions there are, the harder it is to
find one that works. Many people have failed so many times that they’ve almost given up the
battle. Others gave up a long time ago.
3
How To Free Yourself From Bad Habits, Forever!
Establishing new priorities
Is it possible to free yourself from bad habits? Can people really change in any
meaningful and lost- lasting way? Can I change myself? The answer to each of
these questions is “yes.” But you can’t change in 24 hours, as some programs
and self-help books promise.
My research, as well as my experience and common sense, tell me that anyone
can change , but at the same time, I know that people need a compelling reason
to change.
What does it mean to change? To change means to establish new priorities—to
choose a behavior that’s different from the one we’re using now. David Lucero
is stuck on the street, waiting for a solution that doesn’t exist. When a real
solution is right in front of his nose, he can’t see it.
I don’t know when his hearing started to deteriorate. And even though he can
see, I have a feeling that he has been blind for many years. I don’t know the
story of his life, but I suspect it is a story of bad habits and bad decisions.
I’m sure it’s a story filled with bad people and bad situations, too. But at some
point we have to discard the factors, the people, and the situations that shaped
us. Focusing on the past won’t help us solve today. At some point we have to
take responsibility for our own lives.
I suspect that bad habits and bad choices are what brought David to this point
—day after day and year after year—until he hit rock bottom. That’s always the
way it is.
Learning how to free yourself from bad habits starts with the realization that
we cause our own feelings. I am the major cause of my own problems. The
moment I grasp that simple fact, I’m ready to step into the process of selfchange
that will lead to freedom from the habits that keep me from living a
more satisfying life. And when I’m free from my bad habits, the people around
me will be free from the person I used to be.
All people can bring about superficial changes in themselves. But freeing
yourself from a self-destructive habit like smoking or overeating requires a
deep, long- lasting change. A bad habit is like an iceberg. You..