Teetotaler Stages An Intervention Because Of His Roommate’s Drinking, But He Pushes Back Because He Believes There’s Trauma Projection Going On

Everything in moderation.

One of the best, simple, 3-word phrases of advice your parents or a teacher could ever impart to you.

But a lot of people have a problem with that, and find themselves on the wrong side of addiction.

It can become compounded when past experiences color the way you see friends or loved ones.

Here’s a story about projection. And I don’t mean the movie theater kind.

I (24M) live with a few of my friends. One of them, R (23M), had family members growing up that had bad alcohol problems and therefore doesn’t drink.

I asked him before we moved in together if he was OK with that because I do like to drink from time to time. He said he was and it hasn’t been a problem the past few months.

He explains how he rarely drinks, sometimes going 2 or 3 months in between.

Hardly a ‘habit’.

My drinking habits are well controlled – I don’t drink often, once a month at *most* and usually closer to every 2-3 months. I don’t wake up, go throughout my day, or have my boredom interrupted with “Man I could use a drink.”

I don’t crave alcohol, I’m not a “Beer or two after work” type of guy” because I don’t like the taste of alcohol that much, I just enjoy its effects.

If I’m going through emotional problems, I especially stay away from alcohol – that’s just bad juju to combine the two.

OP continues describing a pretty healthy, normal relationship with drinking.

Especially for a 24-year old!

When I do drink its on the weekend, I have nothing important going on the next day, and I’m in the right mood where I think “Man it’d be kinda fun to bump some tunes, play some video games, and chat with some friends *and* have a few drinks.”

I make a few cocktails, measure my intake, and usually have about 8-10 shots worth – falls under “binge drinking” but considering how rarely I do it I’m really not concerned about it. I’ve asked if I’m disruptive and have been told no, I am not – mostly because those nights I’m in bed a solid 2 hours before the rest of them go to bed.

Then his friend/roommate dropped the intervention bomb on him.

Things got intense and escalated as he stood his ground.

Yesterday R pulled me to the side and did an “intervention” on me about my “drinking problem.”

I wondered what he was talking about and eventually it devolved into a fight where I told him to “Stop projecting your trauma onto me dude” because it was basically him comparing polishing off a handle every night to taking half the year to finish off a single bottle.

We’re not talking now and he is obviously mad at me which makes me wonder AITA for what I said?

Let’s see what folks had to say about this tense situation.

One person gave some fantastic advice about exactly what could have been said to better smooth it out.

Another commenter agrees that the roommate has an incredibly warped view of what alcoholism actually is.

While one Redditor thinks the onus lies on the roommate to be honest and clear.

Moderate your projection, bro.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.