With addiction there is always this inability to let go of our own past issues, traumas, personal hang-ups, lack of self-confidence and things that no longer serve us.

In other words: addiction is the attachment to our current place of pain.

The pain of change stems from our fear of losing something - our attachment to stuff, perceptions and excuses.

How do we let go of stuff?

Well, this is another area, where it is easier said than done. Most of us would rather stay stuck in our toxic ways, than let go of them.

Yes, humans are not the most logical beings admittedly.

Humans are pretty irrational most of the time. We tend to do the opposite of what we say we will - and yet we can't understand why we never get the things we want out of life.

When we want to let go of stuff, emotions and baggage, we might want to consider doing this in small steps and focus on non-threatening areas in our life.

This in order to not freak out, compensate and relapse.

It is always a good idea to practice in small steps. Identify areas in your life that are less threatening and which you are less attached to than your current self-destructive behavior. When we can master letting go of small things - like clothes that don't fit us, furniture that is outdated or anything that we hold onto, but that doesn't induce a panic-attack should we let go of it, then we can go after the bigger issues, that don't serve us and keep us stuck.

Like our attachment to maybe always being right, ego and pride... or perhaps our fear of rejection.

Letting go of trivial things might seem ridiculous and as if it is just too little to matter. But exactly because it seems too little to matter, that is why we should practice there first. We have no excuse not to - we are not paralyzed by fear, we just make up excuses of why it won't matter as to not take any action at all - this is how tricky our mind is.

Making excuses for the small things in life, prevents us from ever getting to the big things in life.

We can also practice challenging our need for always being right, if letting go of material things is not relevant for us. Then perhaps stop engaging in arguments on facebook that go nowhere. Explain your point of view in matters that matter, but stop forcing your opinion on others. This is easiest done by trying to understand where the other is coming from, so you open yourself up to the possibility that just because it is your opinion, well that doesn't make it right. After all, I think someone once said opinions are like derrieres - we all have one.

Once we master letting go of some of our emotional or material attachments, we can begin challenging the things that are more painful.

If we fear rejection, then we practice getting rejected. If we fear not being "enough", we expose ourselves to experiences where we might fail.

The more we get rejected, experience failure (at a slow and small-step approach), the better we get at detaching ourselves from events outside ourselves.

We are not what happens to us.

For most of us, the fear of getting rejected etc. is much worse, when we only very rarely experience it, than if we experience it again and again.

Mainly because we learn to understand that no one can reject us, but ourselves.

And when we hide from situations that can potentially lead to rejection - well, we have already rejected ourselves in avoiding allowing ourselves whatever experience it is, that we turn and run away from.

When outside events seem like they reject us, it is - cliche - not so much about us, as it is about the context or the other person. There will often be one or two things, that we can take away and learn from each rejection or failure, but that is something we can correct and grow from.

We as beings are not being rejected by an outside event, that is just not possible.

It is comparable to skiing - the quicker you fall and tumble, the less fear of falling we have.

When we don't challenge ourselves to the point of tumbling over, we fear the fall.

We envision that it will be horrible and break every bone in our body. This only happens if we don't small-step it. Learning to ski happens in stages - as does learning to let go of our fears.

Once we practice letting go of our attachments, we gain grounding inside ourselves.

And the more grounded we become on the inside, the less of a need to escape via addiction will exist: we are set free.