How to Break Bad Habits

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.