The addict who turns to God has made the big and right decision. That is because “the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man, and His compulsion is our liberation.” But no mere decision is enough. Like all sinners, the addict also needs painfully to unlearn old habits, to dismantle old scenarios, to pay old debts, and then to move steadfastly along the road to recovery one small, secure step at a time, always aware that the self we want to recover is never wholly at our disposal. “Evil,” says Diogenes Allen, “is one of the ways we learn that we ourselves are a mystery; for we are not in full control of ourselves and cannot find any methods of gaining control.” The addict therefore needs not just the God who forgives but also the God who heals, not just the good Pardoner but also the Great Physician. Like all sinners, the addict needs spiritual hygiene. For just as sin, addiction, and misery typically go together, so do confession, healing, and the long process of redemption. We need redemption not just from our sins and addictions but also from their miseries—particularly those miseries that occasion more sin and deeper addiction. As all recovering sinners know, this process of healing and liberation, this “conversion unto life,” this set of lessons to teach us how to dance again will prove to be as cunning, baffling, powerful, and patient as addiction itself. 

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin - Cornelius Plantinga Jr.