AITA for telling a friend her drinking is worse than mine?

A Reddit user shares a disagreement with a friend who criticized their plans to drink while home alone during a quiet weekend. The friend implied it was a sign of needing help, despite boasting about their own drinking habits. When the user pointed out the friend’s drinking stories, the conversation turned heated. Were they wrong to call out their friend? Read the full story below.

‘ AITA for telling a friend her drinking is worse than mine?’

My (49f) family is going camping this weekend with a group they belong to. It will just be me and the dog all weekend. Something most women love because the house will be quiet and I don’t have to cook or clean for anyone else. I also have the opportunity to relax and have some drinks because I have no responsibilities.

I mentioned this to my friend (44f), and she asked me if I was spiraling and said drinking to relieve stress is a sign of needing help. This same friend also drinks, and often brags about it. She always has to go out the night before Thanksgiving because “it’s the biggest drinking night of the year.” (We’re in America obviously.) She has season tickets for a college football team and tailgates all day. She brags about how she drank for 12 hours straight and didn’t get sick. And many other examples.

So anyway, I snapped at her and mentioned all her drinking escapades and she says it’s different because she drinks for fun and I drink to escape and relieve stress. I’m honestly not sure what the difference is. But now she’s mad at me for calling her out on her drinking, and apparently being in denial about my own drinking.

These are the responses from Reddit users:

Reasonable-Ad-3605 −  NTA. Unless you get destructive when drinking she’s being an a**hole. Unwinding with a beer or wine or cocktail ispretty normal.

ElGato6666 −  There isn’t enough information here to make a judgment. But a lot of times people with drinking problems often point to their other friends’ drinking habits just to show that they are not actually that far off from the “norm.”

Massive-Amphibian-57 −  There is this view that any drinking that is not for “fun” and “social events” is harmful and destructive. Sure, it can be. Any drinking could become destructive if done too often or too much. But I turn against this idea that drinking alone by default is problematic. I myself usually get one week to myself each year when the wife and the kids go to their grandparents.

That week I usually drink some wine and play video games, just unwinding and relaxing. I despise the idea that that is problematic. Basically every other week of the year is work, clean, look after kids, driving to and from kids activities and virtually no drinking (except for the occasional AW).

Notnownotthennotyou −  I thought the night before Thanksgiving was the biggest COOKING night of the year! Shows what I know. Nobody who is in that shady place of maybe drinking too much is quite honest about their drinking. Don’t get into it with your friend about alcohol. What’s the point? Two drinkers arguing about drinking can’t go anywhere good. A**oholic here – recovered now, but in my day I could deflect with the best.

ScienceNotKids −  INFO. This feels unanswerable without knowing more about how much you each drink. If you plan to have a glass of wine and read a book, obviously she was off base about you. If she drinks once a week, even to some excess, that also doesn’t seem to be a huge issue as long as it isn’t negatively impacting her or someone else’s life.

IamtheStinger −  Critical, but unwilling to acknowledge her own disfunction with alcohol. You weren’t about to get so slaughtered, you couldn’t get off the couch for three days. A few glasses of your fave tipple, a movie, a book – no one in your face, peace and tranquility. That’s fun.

Hedonist1971 −  Quite judgemental friend you have. I wouldn’t even want to engage in any form of discussion with such a person. She’ll be making a fool out of herself when bingedrinking while you’ll be doing you and enjoy the peace and quietness. Cheers to that.

WeirdOk5563 −  If she can judge you about how you drink, then I think she needs to look at her own behaviors about that. She’s mad because the truth hurts. You’re not in denial, you are aware.

Odd-Village-995 −  NTA. Alcoholics usually do get mad when you call them alcoholics, or heavily insinuate it.

AccountMitosis −  INFO: What do you mean by “I drink to escape and relieve stress”? Do you find drinking to be a stress-management tool that you use frequently? Is it about having a single glass of wine in combo with some fluffy socks and dumb TV shows and a cozy blanket, or is the intoxicating effect of the alcohol the primary factor in the de-stressing effect?

Or in other words, if you removed alcohol from the equation, would you find your alone time equally or almost as relaxing? Or would you find it more difficult to relax with no alcohol involved?. What does “escape” mean to you?

Depending on your answers to the above questions, you might want to investigate your drinking habits more closely, perhaps with the aid of a therapist who specializes in the subject. Because while your and your friend’s motivations for drinking are not the same, you may well BOTH have problems with drinking, just *different* ones. Drinking to escape is not a sign of a healthy relationship with alcohol any more than binge drinking socially is.

Talking about a quiet house that “most women love,” and your friend immediately jumping to questioning your intentions regarding alcohol during that time, makes me wonder if you have perhaps fallen victim to “wine mom” rhetoric (which is not always aimed at moms, but can be more generally feminine than the name implies)– those harmful stereotypes about how it’s okay for women to glorify specifically drinking to escape, due to the stresses of everyday life.

Wine mommery is a trap that uses the aesthetic trappings of feminine empowerment and girl-bossing to *disempower* women by excusing and encouraging substance dependence and abuse.

Excessive wine-mom-style drinking is unfortunately commonly socially accepted (much like your friend’s excessive social drinking is for people in a different stage of life), which makes it extra-dangerous and worth being extremely vigilant for.