Addiction and habit and pattern.... oh my!

Why is it that the SAME "stuff" keeps catching me. I sand and sand and sand, but that pesky rough spot is still there and sometimes I really believe it is not getting any smoother. Sitting here, after the fact it is always so much easier to say "I should have done this, or that or definitely NOT THAT" but I have been here before.
The issue at hand is my reaction towards certain things, people, situations. My habit is letting my fear get the better of me and in doing that I tend to make unwise choices about my actions. Am I making sense without bearing all my dirty laundry out on this blog? I mean, this is the personal of the personal. This is at the core of what is blocking my path to enlightenment. (ok, now I am getting a bit dramatic.... but it is kind of true).
What can I do. How can I shift. I am reading a wonderful book called Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates. It has a message everyday, for an entire year taking the student on the not-so-linear eight limbed path of yoga. My message today included words to the effect that sometimes we can get so caught up in our own lives that we become shortsighted. We simply cannot always know what is best for us. My own thoughts immediately jump to my best friend trying to help me work through several recent events. As they unfolded and I became more and more unraveled, he became like a rock and tried to help me do the same. He reached out to me, even though I sat there, my mind drowning in a sea of doubt, fear, even anger. He offered his hand and I refused. At that moment, I preferred my own cess pool of self pity. Naturally, he moved on.... away from me. He was dealing with the same situation, but refused to take the path I had chosen.
Frusteration for me often stems from the fact that I have asked for my piece of humble pie one too many times. I am caught in an ugly cycle of beating my self of over the situation and then beating my self up over how I reacted to it.
World, what do you think?