Let’s start with an analogy. If you realize that you are addicted to alcohol and want that to change, you abstain from alcohol. But if you realize that you have an eating disorder, you can’t abstain from food. You have to reorient your relationship to food so that it no longer hurts your body, your psyche, your relationships, etc. 

It’s similar with idolatry. Worshiping God as God does not mean that we can’t do anything else. Rather, it means that everything else is infused with the purpose God gives it rather than becoming an end in itself. So if you have idolized work, getting rid of that idol doesn’t (necessarily) mean quitting your job. It means reorienting your priorities and relationship to work in such a way that it honors God. I went through a spell in college where I idolized my then-boyfriend. Getting rid of that idolatry didn’t require a breakup. But it did require radical changes in our relationship. We began seeing our relationship as a way to serve others rather than simply a way to meet our own needs. And we began to recognize that our ultimate worth and security needed to come from the Lord and not from each other. Many years later, we are now happily married, and we still try to allow our love for each other to reflect the love of God in one another’s lives. We still try to keep God as the center of our family, not our marriage, not our children. 

When we find idols in our lives, we need to bring them to God, willing to relinquish them altogether, or to put them in their proper place.