Sorry this is looong!!
My closest friend had a nasty back injury about a year ago, she was put on all kinds of drugs by her GP, mostly opiates I think. Unfortunately she developed a bit of a habit and carried on taking them (still prescribed by her GP!) even after her back was better. I don’t know what it was exactly she was taking but it was pills that the GP gave her because she told them she had a problem so they were trying to wean her off. Her habit never became that bad. According to her she only ever took a few in the evening after she put her DC to bed when her DH was there (Although he never knew about it).
Personally I never saw her “high”. We often went out with our kids together to local playgroups and swimming and she seemed completely normal to me so I do believe her that she was only taking them at night.
She was open with me and another good friend of ours about it and said she was desperate to stop but didn’t know where to get help. I’ve only ever been understanding and non-judgemental with her and even looked up some local services for her to see if they could do a better job of supporting her than the GP was. The other friend, however (also a very close friend of mine) was not so understanding. She ripped into her about being a bad mother and how she didn’t deserve to have children! I was shocked at her lack of empathy. I’d never seen this side to her before. She obviously really, really upset the other friend and they stopped speaking. I didn’t really want to get involved and remained friends with both of them. I wondered what could have triggered it because she has no history of addiction in her family (the 3 of us have been friends since school). The only thing I could think was she had desperately wanted children and went through a number of unsuccessful IVF attempts before deciding to give up and maybe that in some way triggered it?
Anyway my friend accessed the support of a local service and with the help of them eventually came off everything she was taking. I was proud of her and told the other friend but she wasn’t interested in hearing it.
So to get to the point! This friend (after other friend had come off everything although I’m not totally clear she knew/believed that) made an anonymous report to social services and told them my friend was using very large amounts of drugs in front of her children every day (not true at the time of the report and not even true when she was using!). Not only that but she also called the DVLA and told them she regularly drives under the influence (also not true). This has had horrendous consequences for my friend- she’s had calls, visits from social services and she had her driving licence revoked! The friend denies it was her that made the reports but no one else knew the details she put in the report but me and her so it can’t have been anyone else.
I’m pretty appalled by what this friend has done. Until she did this I was happy to maintain my friendship with both of them separately and believe everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. I’ve known her since we were 12 and I didn’t want to lose the friendship but I’m really disgusted by what she’s done. The other friend is obviously absolutely raging and wants to sue her for deliberately making a false report (I don’t know if she can do that?). Do I ditch this friend or try and stay out of it and maintain a friendship with both of them? The “bad” friend has really been there for me in the past when I had no one else and I sort of feel I owe her for those times