With any behavior, repetition leads to the forming of a habit that then can develop into an addiction. The difference between a repeated habit and an enslaving addiction is the amount of time it takes from your everyday life, the power it has over your life, and the negative impact it has on your life. 

If the behavior has mastery over your life rather than you having mastery over it, then it is an addiction. If you are determined to allow only God to have mastery over you, He will give you the power to either gain and maintain mastery over the behavior or to have victory over it and stop it. 

“Sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” 

(Romans 6:14) 

The Bible is interwoven with the same concept: Your habits characterize your character. If you are a Christian, your calling is to be clothed in the habit of Christ, with the result that your character actually reflects His character.

“Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

Romans 13:14

Habits are learned behaviors that become powerful forces in your life for good … or for bad. Every habit is either Christ-centered or self-centered … a virtue or a vice … a beauty or a beast! Certain characteristics are common to those who repeatedly practice destructive, addictive behavior. These characteristics can become automatic to the point that those who have them are totally oblivious to them. Nevertheless, their impact can destroy personal and professional relationships and the development of Christlike characteristics because those who are controlled by habitual negative behavior patterns.

Habits are like seesaws—they can either push you up or pull you down. To determine the degree to which your habits are good or bad, helpful or harmful, look at Scripture and see what conclusions you discover.

• Habits can be beneficial and profitable.

“Blessed are those who keep my ways.”

(Proverbs 8:32).

• Habits can be evil and destructive.

“They get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to.”

(1 Timothy 5:13)

• Habits can be passed down from generation to generation.

“The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed the ways of his father David before him.”

(2 Chronicles 17:3)

• Habits can reflect devotion to God and God’s character.

“I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God” (Psalm 18:21)

• Habits can increase consistency and strengthen character.

“The righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.”

(Job 17:9)

• Habits are a choice—a function of the will—but they can also be influenced by the mind and emotions.

“What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways.”

(Job 22:28)

• Habits can be a positive witness to others.

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

(Matthew 5:16)

• Addictions are not just a choice, but the result of a bad choice that has been repeatedly made over an extended period of time.

“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered

them.’”

(2 Peter 2:19)

• Addictions lead hearts astray and hurt the cause of Christ.

“Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.”

(2 Peter 2:2)

• Addictions hold people captive and cover them with a canopy of darkness.
   

• “I will keep you and will make you . . . to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

• (Isaiah 42:6–7).

• Addictions enslave people and freedom comes from the Lord who delights in breaking the yoke of slavery.
   

• “They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them.”

• (Ezekiel 34:27)

• Addictions hold mastery over us and God is to be our only Master.
   

• “‘I have the right to do anything’—but I will not be mastered by anything.”

• (1 Corinthians 6:12)

• Habits and addictions can both be overcome through Christ.
•  

  “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one [Jesus] who is in you is greater than the one

  [Satan] who is in the world”.

• (1 John 4:4)