How can we get rid of bad habits?

Dear Brother / Sister,

One of the greatest dangers that young people who are open to innovations and changes due to their nature face is bad habits. They can be easily trapped by bad habits due to their nature and their desires for different things. 

As a matter of fact, many bad habits form during adolescence.

We can list many bad habits, primarily smoking, drinking alcohol, gambling, taking drugs. The Prophet (pbuh) warned us against bad habits and asked us to spend our time by doing good deeds. 

The remedy for bad habits is to obtain good religious knowledge and to practice Islam because such bad habits originate when the mind, heart and spirit are left hungry. However, if we feed our spiritual feelings with belief and worship, if we spend our days by serving our religion and try to inform others about the beauty of our religion, we will not need any bad habits nor will we have time for them.

How can we get rid of a sin that has become a habit?

There is no sin that cannot be abandoned. Each sin can be abandoned through belief, time, place and environment.

The road map for us and for all humanity is the Quran and the Sunnah. We cannot advise anything else to you. That is, we should make the Quran and the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) our guide, arrange our deeds in accordance with them and read the issues of belief and religious books in meditation. That is, if you find books that are related to belief and the Quran or if you meet people who meditate and study those issues and spend some time with them by making use of them, it will be beneficial for you both in the world and the hereafter.

To perform prayers on time, to be careful about major sins and to glorify Allah after prayers will improve you.

To strengthen the will: My will is very weak; what should I do to strengthen my will?

Willmeans to prevent the animal desires and appetites from guiding one’s consciousness and life. The will that has been trained controls the feelings and inclinations first and the thoughts and behavior then; it applies the beneficial and ethical ones; it sends the inappropriate ones to subconscious and imprisons them.  

The most legitimate and efficient resources that makes man’s will function and that gives it the power to attain achievements and happiness are  true knowledge, sound belief, guileless worship and sincere prayers  that come from the heart. Man does what he knows and act based on his belief and thoughts. 

Expert psychiatrists say that the most important cause that leads to man to psychological crisis, frenzy, crime and even to suicide is loneliness. The main factor that leads modern man to loneliness is materialistic philosophy that takes man away from virtuous values like spirituality, love, goodness, tolerance and altruism, and makes him a selfish and rapacious creature, and the education systems that are based on it.

Technology, which developed in the last century, has enhanced societies but diminished the borders of the family and friendship, led man to loneliness and imprisoned him in his small ego. Thus, the solidarity in the family and among relatives has disappeared, friendship and sincerity have been lost, and the interests and competitions made people adverse to one another. False smiles, hypocritical words and shallow relationships have made man fall down to the degree of spiritless creatures. However, we should not be deceived by the fact that they have fun and drink together. They are acts that aim to make use of one another in order to get rid of the boredom in them; that is, they are acts that are based on personal interests.   

Worship is an element that always strengthens man to resist his soul and a power that weakens the soul. Man who aims to strengthen his will should be careful about his worship, keep away from sins and should be busy with things that will be beneficial to him and the humanity.

Questions on Islam