Self addiction - I am my own worst enemy

The biggest thing I am struggling with right now is the whole concept of "dying to self" that Paul talks about in Romans. To be honest, I don't want to die to self. In fact, I LOVE myself... too much. That's my problem. I am the most important person in my world -- my comfort and my entertainment are what tend to drive me.
I was recently reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, and he had something in there that stopped me cold in my tracks. It was as if the paragraph was written for me to read.

I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.

That's how I feel most of the time. I don't get the shakes, but I definitely get panic attacks when I give in to my habits. And as bad as I know the habits are for me, I chase them all the same... feeling the high of the chase, then feeling the low of the self-esteem crash.

I think our strong desires are a gift from God, but I'm 99.9% sure I have mine focused in the wrong place. I can't imagine what my relationship with God would look like if I spent all this energy chasing him, instead of chasing myself.