NC for this as very outing.
I became friends with a lady (let's call her Sally) through another friend. I've been renting her car from her for the last couple of years, so I don't know her intimately but we have regular contact a couple of times a month via text.She is divorced, her exH lives quite a way away I think, but does have the children on a regular basis.
I knew Sally was a heavy drinker before I met her. Her reputation comes before her. We've met up twice for drinks. On each occasion she has ended up so drunk that she is virtually comatose and is unable to look after herself in any capacity, and she gets herself into this state within about 2 hours so the evenings were cut very short, which wasn't what we wanted so it was bizarre she let it happen. The first time we were out she 'lost' £100 from her purse and it wasn't put towards our evening because I paid the tab at the end (which was no problem). The second time she lost her iPhone and apparently she regularly loses them - about 4 per year - because she gets so drunk.
Things she has done whilst drunk:
Falling asleep in a fairly empty pub, leaning against the wall with her legs up on another chair an splayed apart so much that nothing was left to the imagination....all the more embarrassing because everyone in there was looking at her and laughing. When I tried to wake her and sit her properly, she would stay like that for about 20 seconds, before going back exactly as she was before. Eventually I gave up and arranged for a mutual friend to come and pick her up, thinking that no taxi would take her in that state.
Fallen asleep in pubs and snoring loudly.
Got lost in a smallish pub and not being able to find our table again, so drunkenly trying to join other peoples' tables.
Plus many, many more along the same lines.
Now here is where it starts straying into the unacceptable. She has two children aged 16 and 14. The eldest is a nightmare, smoking dope freely around the house on a daily basis. Also sells drugs and has repeatedly stolen expensive items from the house (MacBook Air, iPads, jewellery, etc.) to fund this drug habit. It always happens when Sally is drunk/hungover in bed.
The younger child is left to fend for herself a lot of the time, alone in the house. Feeding herself, washing her own uniform, cleaning the house all by herself. Now, none of this is wrong, but my point is that Sally isn't doing these things BECAUSE she's drunk. She does work but in a pub (therefore can drink) and a cocktail bar (ditto). She lost her proper job under a very black cloud and associated with alcohol.She is very open with her children about her drinking and merrily calls them up to tell them she's "totally trollied".
This is where I really start to worry. Sally now tells me that her DD is starting to ask for wine on a regular basis. She is given a small sherry glass and then swaps it for a much bigger glass when Sally isn't looking. She also wanders around the house with a bottle of wine in her hand. Being left to her devices only strengthens this habit in my opinion. There's no structure/meals/hep with homework - nothing like that.
The other thing that happens regularly is that she'll come home so drunk she can;t put herself to bed and the children have to do it. The last time she did that, she managed to open the front door but then fell straight through it, ending up face down on the floor, completely unable to wake up. These are things that she thinks are perfectly normal. The worrying thing is that she is shortly to get her driving licence back and, as things stand, she will never be sober while she's driving. She drinks every day, around 2/3/4 bottles of wine, or the equivalent. Her father was an alcoholic and she describes herself as a 'functioning alcoholic', but has no desire to change, thinks it's reasonably normal.
Sorry that's so long! I was trying not to drip feed. My basic question is: from the perspective of strangers, does this look like a child protection issue? Or just a home life that is chaotic?