Drunk friends

Difficult one.

Clare was landed with looking after vunerable pissed Kate on her own because you left her to it.
You gave fair warning of your deadlines which were ignored.
Could you not both have physically got drunk friend safely home well before cut off of 10.00pm?
Don't go out with them again.

What horrors! Sounds like they just wanted a babysitter to watch their drunken bums!

Good grief; how old is she? 12?! Since when did you become a babysitter to Kate and Claire?! They are grown adults (despite Kate's school gate behaviour) and it's not on you to sweep up behind their wake.

Don't lower yourself to her standards; just get on with your life and find better friends.

first you are not a bad friend. Tell them this.

And then ask them what they think you should have done in that situation? And be clear that if it ever happens again, you will do the same as you did before.

Kate is a twat.

You don't want one of them in your life.

If I'd been in a bad mood I'd have told Kate to have another drink and get over it.

Don't do that OP.

Tell Kate that if she chooses to inflict a friend who can’t handle her drink on other people, she needs to deal with the consequences. No one likes a sloppy, stubborn, out of control drunk who needs to be dragged out of bars, and frankly, if Claire often blacks out, has been fired for drinking at work etc, then she has an alcohol problem she should be getting treatment for. Not your problem..

I'd stop bothering with them until they grow up tbh.

My god! While I get their perspective of "you left me with the drunk one" it doesn't make you our view (I am leaving when I say I will) wrong. She should have gotten over it. Blanking you is so silly. Wow.

You left two of them… they could look after each other. One person is very different. They’re in the wrong not you!

This is rotten behaviour. Trust me OP she is embarrassed, just isn’t mature enough to admit it to herself and is too bad mannered to apologise.

You’re well rid of her! More time for nice drama free nights out now :)

She sounds like an fecking child. She is the one who should be ashamed of her childish behaviour. Maybe she is embarrassed but even if she is that is no excuse to ignore you. I would be interested to know if she is talking to the people who left earlier than you.

Late 30s?!! Oh my lord. Kate needs to grow up. Claire needs to see her GP and you need new friends. Good luck!

How old are you all? All this staying with a drunken friend is the stuff of undergraduate days. The added drama of people falling over and walking ahead "in a huff" has had me expelling my eyeballs just reading about it 🙄

A grown woman getting publicly drunk to a point where another grown woman who was vaguely more sober had to stay with her, & they're both annoyed that another grown woman set clear & sensible boundaries for her evening, kept herself sober, & got herself home to her children?

Kate & particularly Claire need to take a hard look at their lives & choices. They could start by observing how the OP behaved & attempting to follow her lead.

OP - take this as a barometer moment. Time to remove yourself from their embarrassingly immature world and find some friends who are functional adults.

You don't leave one drunk friend alone....but their was two if them, one significantly better than the other.
They shouldn't have let you go home alone, they should have gone with you.

You were the one left on your own, they were together. I wouldn't go out with them again.

Don't be so utterly absurd. Claire is an addict and Kate is an enabler. I wouldn't be spending time with either one of them.

Maybe I'm a bad friend - some on this thread seem to think so - but I'd have done exactly what you did OP. We can't control others, only ourselves, and you did the best you could to get them on the bus that you had to get. I hate this thing where one person who's made the decision to get drunk is suddenly everyone else's responsibility. It's not as though Claire fell ill out of the blue and you left Kate to look after her! She's well past being old enough to know her limits. I'd be annoyed at Claire if I were Kate, but that's for her to deal with and she shouldn't be blaming you.

I always sort my ‘getting home’ arrangements prior to going out. For example, I’ll buddy up with a friend and we plan to get a cab/the train back together. If you did no such thing, don’t worry, you were not obligated to stay. If we are old enough to go out and consume alcohol, we are old enough to consider our route home. Were you really expected to potentially ruin your plans the next day due to tiredness because Claire was acting up? OP, your friends reaction is childish.

This is why I rarely go out anymore and enjoy being home in my pyjamas 😂
YANBU at all

You left your friend to deal with a drunk person on her own because you didn’t want the inconvenience of having to stay and help.

Kate didn’t want to stay any more than you did, she stayed to look after the pissed person because she probably knew that leaving her alone would be dangerous and could have serious consequences.

If I were Kate, I think I’d feel like both of you were shit friends. Claire for getting so drunk she couldn’t look after herself and you for leaving her to deal with it alone.

Kate wanted to catch the same bus you did, she just has a better moral compass.

No. You didn't do anything wrong. They both sound like they wanted to enjoy themselves regardless of the impact it had on you, so they have no right to blame you for their choices.

Did they ask you to be their carer whilst they got drunk?

Nope. You did nothing wrong. You told them you had to leave by a certain time and had dc's at home. Kate and clare are in the wrong.

The same happened to me many, many years ago but I was driving and not drinking. Ended up getting home at 4.30am because my friend invited her work colleague and she got absolutely sh@t faced and disappeared. Found her and stuggled to get this woman in my car. She could hardly stand up. I got stopped by the police on the way home because her feet and legs were leaning against the side window due to how she was laying in the back of the car. I was breathalyser but obviously all fine but I was driving slowly so they thought I had been drinking. we were told we were good friends and i said she isnt my mate, just a pain in the backside .She lives on her own, so we found her key and put her to bed. No apology and apparently we spoilt her night. This was all before I was married and had dc's.

But the OP has responsibilities she needed to get home for. No way would I put some drunk dickhead above my kids.