Passions are powerful.  They are the deep desires which stir our imagination, motivate us to action and seem to want to control our thinking.  But we are not animals, unable to understand our impulses or unable to control them.  We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  He is the Master at choosing how and when to express His deep desires; His desires are always right and He always makes right choices.
 
When we received the grace of Christ, we accepted that His death was because of our sins.  In welcoming His new life we surely cannot hold onto our old sinful life any longer (Romans 6:2).  In the same way that Jesus' body became lifeless and unresponsive when He died, our inner self-pleasing desires need to become unresponsive to temptations.  Then evil ideas become powerless to speak wickedness into our lives.  

In part, that is the work of the Holy Spirit giving us an appetite for a good relationship with Jesus by doing what pleases Him (1 John 3:21-22).  Also, it is our choice to crucify that old nature which is opposed to God (Colossians 3:5-9).  That is normal Christian discipleship.  But if we do not make that choice, either we are ignorant of God’s Word, or are disobedient or we do not have Christ’s life.
 
It is not always easy to deal with persistent bad habits, because we still want whatever benefit we see in them.  Like fire-fighters who may have to ‘damp-down’ a fire for hours or days, we will have to keep on rejecting deep inner ‘wants’ which conflict with God’s agenda and asking for His help.  Changing our behaviour alone is not really a solution if our heart is unwilling to let go of some cherished goal.  It starts with an honest view of ourselves in the light of God’s Word and continues as we place God’s priorities higher than our own.  We pray about our need for a changed heart, and we practise deliberate choices to put the new ambitions way ahead of the old ones.  It is a necessary, and often daily, struggle.  But God gets the glory (Matthew 6:13).