This is something people struggle with. It is easy to get caught up with some addiction and people have their own addictions. For some people, it can be drinking or drugs etc. For me, it was something hard to understand why people were addicted to anything because I was never in this position, until i ended up finding myself in a similar position.

Something I struggled with especially living as an international student in Oslo was staying alone. This started during Covid-19, I never faced it before and failed to admit to myself I was scared of being alone. This in turn, created a need to go for social events. The substances I identified with social events was beer. Social events for me usually included beer or some other form of alcohol. There was almost never an event without a beer for me personally.

As metioned above, i started noticing my addiction towards beer. I ended up drinking quite a few beers every single week. I told myself I was not addicted to these things and I am just having more of a social life which went missing during Covid-19. It took me a while to admit to myself about my addiction. Even after I accepted I have an addiction, I found it hard to tell someone else about and ask for help.

When it came to Alcohol, the times I really wanted to drink alcohol were the times I was upset or frustrated about something. It became something I turned to instead of people whenever I got upset. This is really harmful and doesn’t do any good. It can be hard to tell between having a few drinks then and now compared to having an addiction.

Some of the pointers in telling whether you have an addiction are:

• Increase in quantity of drinks
• Frequency of drinks
• Drinking at odd times like that of the morning
• Dependence on alcohol to function
• Looking for places where alcohol is present

Addictions tend to get worse over time. There are usually warning signs you can spot during the early phases. I think I was lucky to stop it at some point, before it completely broke me down.

I kept blaming outside events where responsible for how I feel. I was failing toaccept that it was my responsibility for my happiness. I remembered this one quote from Marcus Aurelius “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength“.

This made me realise I cannot control the number of outside events that are happening but I can control my reaction to it. I can say NO to some of those events I am invited to. If the event doesn’t bring me joy or value, it would be important to say no. One of my friends also mentioned was don’t overstay your welcome. If you are gonna go for a party which lasts 3 hours, you can call it a day after an hour or two. Instead of grabbing an alcoholic drink, grab something that is non alcoholic. It became important whenever I got tempted by Alcohol, to leave the place or event. This in turn prevented me from grabbing that drink I might have had and which would in turn lead to a few more drinks after.

Amor Fati is a latin phrase that is described as accepting one’s fate. It is translated as love of one’s fate. It meant you also accept suffering or loss etc. My view on Amor Fati is accepting what is happening in your life and accepting it objectivitely. The way I could look at myself objectively was when I was mindful.

One of the things that I had continued through all this was meditation. I did not do it for the largest amount of time but I did it consistently everyday. This allowed me to calm myself from what is happening around me. This and walking were the two thing which allowed me to be more mindful and helped me through a lot of stress related issues. Whenever I felt overwhelmed I did one of these two things to calm myself for the moment.

Once you accept what is happening to you and see things from an objective view, I would say it becomes easy to solve your problems. This is one of the major steps that helped me through my addiction or any other issues.

Did you go through something like this, would love to hear your story and how you got through your issues. Let me know in the comments below.