If you find yourself having to provide any counseling, here is a helpful thought. You could point out that both righteousness and wickedness are DIRECTIONS: each has its own velocity and its own trajectory. They are not static positions but moving dynamics – they go somewhere, by degrees.
I stumbled upon this quote which nails the point in reading the Charles Spurgeon (19th century British preacher) commentary on the beginning of Psalm One.
"He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God - the evil is rather practical than habitual. But after that, they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who willfully violate God's commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves tempters of others – thus they sit in the seat of the scornful and are looked up to by others as Masters in Belial." (Spurgeon)
The issue is always "where does it LEAD?" Good counseling always gets a person to address that for THEMSELVES.
For a quick read on a possibly related topic: Forgiveiness.
