When our problems get in our way, we seek a remedy—but only for the evolved problem rather than the faulty living that gave rise to it, which we jealously preserve and protect!

We refuse to look at the real reason behind it because it would mean that we would have to change our selfishness, wrong motives, ambitions and goals underlying those symptoms. 

Fallen man does not hunger and thirst after Rightness—he seeks only self-righteousness, the stamp of approval for what he has become through ambition.

And so we become hungry and thirsty for ways to stifle our “nagging” conscience, and the activities that lead to “relief’ are called vice. 

Most people, you see, are simply not willing to find the Truth and Real Purpose in life. They desire instead to continue in a willful, egocentric and separate existence. So the more wrong we become the more time we have to spend to kill pain; that is the basis of bad habits.

We spend more and more time doing this “pain-killing,” until finally we are so wrong that it takes all our attention, time, and energy. 

There are but two ways available to every person: Truth and Life, or the lie and death.

One road leads back toward the Highest Principle, while the other leads only from one “high” to another, from the supreme folly of error to the exquisite torture of relief. 

"We cannot exist merely as air-breathing mammals. Man must find his purpose in something other than simple existence."

When we choose the road to self-discovery, goal-making and glory-seeking become unimportant, blah and irrelevant. As a matter of course, our frustration diminishes and our habits start to give us up.

Frustration arises only when we get what “we” planned, or when we fail to attain what we strive for. To be happy, we must embody the Highest Principles and express the intent of the creative purpose. We begin by facing ourselves and becoming completely honest. 

Ambition ... dishonesty ... egotism ... selfishness ... are all facets of the same root cause, the pride of man. 

We cannot exist merely as air-breathing mammals. Man must find his purpose in something other than simple existence. When we do not know our rightful place, our habits revolve around our efforts to soothe the pain that results when we fail to find that place—and that just adds sin to sin.

And so, we may drink or smoke to forget the guilt of drinking and smoking, in addition to the mistakes that are made under the influence. 

When our attitude becomes one of seeking, that is, a willingness to accept correction, then we become incompat­ible with excuses and justifications, and we are able to yield to the pressure of Conscience instead of fighting it.

What happens is that quite often our habits give us up immediately (though not without pain), because we will have the new spiritual attitude that cannot yield to temptation.

Even though our bodies may cry out for them, we cannot give way. As we become clean, the real reason for that craving comes into view, and through facing that error and being repentant, it is completely resolved.