Drunk friends

[AmIclutchingpearls]

Cannot quite believe the situation I ended up in at the weekend and would really appreciate any objective input please!

Good friend organised to go for bottomless brunch and drinks after with a group of ladies. 7 of us mostly in our late 30s. We arrived around 2pm, my friend (let's call her Kate) and one of her friends (let's call her Claire) got quickly drunk but Kate sorted herself out by stopping drinking and having lots of water. Claire went very much the other way.

The original plan was to get the bus home around 9pm and most went by then. Kate and Claire wanted to stay longer. Kate wanted to order some food which I thought was a good idea so I reluctantly agreed to get 10pm bus but said I must be on that as I had to be up next day and had plans with my young children.

Time came to leave and Claire wouldn't go, still drinking and dancing. Claire doesn't speak much English and Kate has same native language as Claire so Kate was trying to persuade her. We spent 20 minutes trying to get Claire to leave but she wouldn't so I eventually said well I will have to go on my own because I can't miss this bus. Kate said wait she would drag Claire out. I stood outside another 5 mins but they didn't come, popped my head back in and Claire was sat drinking. So I left but text Kate saying if they rush they can still make it.

Now Kate is saying I am a terrible friend for leaving drunk friends alone. I feel awful but also feel like it's me who should be annoyed that I stayed later than I wanted to but still ended up walking alone then waiting on my own for the bus. All the way to the bus I was calling and texting them both so I feel I did all I could.

There was a later bus we could have got but I was already an hour later than I wanted to be and felt it would have been the same problem if I had waited another 30 minutes, possibly worse as Claire was still drinking.

Was I in the wrong?

Claire was drunk. Very few drunk people are making sensible decisions. Yes it was bad to get drunk, but you don’t leave a drunk woman and fuck off home. You support and then you can make your feelings clear sgter

But she wasn't all alone, Kate was with her?

Firstly I need to say I have never abandoned someone in that kind of state, to the point that I've been over an hour and a half later home, when I have responsibilities at home.

But I think it is a very shitty thing for so called friends to do. As grown ass adults they can tell when they are getting drunk, when it's going too far etc. To EXPECT to be able to just continue because 'oh so and so will sort me getting home' is bang out of order. You need to be responsible for yourself and not basically dump it on someone else. Kate brought Claire KNOWING what she is like. Claire should never habe got into that state and expected others to mind her. She was told several times that the OP was going at 10pm, had commitments etc. She kept saying she's coming and then lashing into more drink.

But equally I don't think Kate has a right to expect OP to babysit either. Claire is not the ops responsibility. And by the sounds of it Kate used Claires continued drinking as an excuse to do the same herself with an air of 'oh OP will sort it'. And OP didn't. She looked out for number one.

I have lost count of the times people have done this to me because they know I'd never forgive myself if something happened to them. This past weekend I ended up babysitting a young 20s girl I'd never even met before, a friend of a friend, because said friend ditched her when she got drunk. She isn't from the area and doesn't know people and I couldn't leave her in the state she was in. But I also needed to be home an hour and a half before I was. So I am well pissed and I will bow out early around that friend again so as not to be lumbered with this situation. Which also curtails my enjoyment of the night.

Was I in the wrong?

No

I would agree if it was teenagers, but grown assed women who should know better and are compos mentis enough to keep ordering drinks and are able to argue the toss about going home as agreed? Not so much! In my much younger days, I would have been the one who wanted to stay out for just one more and would have tried to get friends to stay, but if my two remaining friends said it was time to go home, I would have begrudgingly gone because I'm not a dick and I respect my friends and my promises no matter how drunk I am!

I don't think you did anything wrong, they made a decision to drink so heavily, it's not on you to facilitate them. If they wanted you to look after them they should have caught the bus with you.

Kate and Claire are grown women who can get themselves home without being supervised. Their choice to get pissed. If they were sober enough to have conversations about what bus you were going to get and whether to order food and so on, they were capable of sharing a taxi.

I loathe people who can't take their alcohol and then expect everyone else to look after them. I used to have a colleague like this - every time there was any kind of social event after work she would get so staggering drunk by about 8-9pm that she could barely stand up and someone who lived near her would end up having to leave early to accompany her home in a taxi because she wasn't in any state to make her own way. The third time it happened, we ended up taking her mobile phone out of her pocket while she was too pissed to notice and using it to phone her husband to come and collect her because we couldn't deal with her.

I'm with you, I have kids at home, I don't expect to have to look after grown adults in my free time too. If she always ends up doing this and your other friend continues to put up with it that doesn't mean you need to.
Adults make their choices and deal with the consequences, not expect other people to.

You did your best.

As the saying now goes, 'recollections may differ'.

Kate was responsible for her friend Claire. Claire has a drink problem by the sounds of it. I think this should be the focus of Kate's attention.

How old are you all? 30s?

I'd just not reply to Kate and let her think on it.

Claire needs help if she's been fired for turning up drunk to work.

Lesson learnt - leave with the herd. Don't stay with the heavy sessioners.

No. They were together. You didn't leave a drunk friend alone. They are adults. You were alreafy an hour later than you wanted yo be

Out of interest, what did Kate think you should have stayed and done? Helped her to physically drag Claire onto the bus? Because in reality had you stayed you'd have just been pointlessly sat there while Claire carried on drinking until she'd had enough and was ready to leave, then possibly had to call a taxi for everyone. Given its not Claires first rodeo, and Kate was with her, I imagine they'd have managed this without you.

What a couple of moaning ninnies they are.

FFS they were there together. The operative word being TOGETHER!

You didn't abandon them, nor do they need hand holding like they're 2 years old. Well, maybe they do, but that's not your responsibility!

Kate can fuck right off telling you you're a bad friend.

I'd not be going out with Claire again, I go out to relax and enjoy myself not deal with drunken friends.

To coin an MN phrase, it sounds as if you need new friends!

I take it Kate hasn't messaged round the other women, blaming them for leaving at 9pm when it was clear Claire was a handful? Only you, for agreeing to stick it out a bit longer before you left?

They're adults, responsible for themselves and since Kate clearly knows the score with Claire she's utterly out of order for holding you there longer when she likely knew there was no chance of leaving at 10pm. She had you waste an hour of your time rather than use the group numbers to to encourage Claire to leave.

There is an update, Kate has now text saying that I am playing the victim and she thinks that is because I am feeling guilty.

I just feel so sad about the whole situation, it was such a shame to end her birthday celebration like this and worst of all I seem to have lost one of my closest friends.

Thank you all for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it.

I don't know if she has, she did say she is annoyed with them because they all just left (some at 9pm but some earlier) without saying anything.

Kate says she fell over in the street rushing for the bus and had no friends to help her. (Claire was walking way behind and had told me while I was on facetime trying to direct her to the bus station that Kate had walked ahead in a huff.)

Kate told me on the night that she had fallen (again when I was calling trying to direct her) and I was texting to make sure she had made it to her house then the following 2 days I was asking about her leg and suggesting she gets it checked but just getting 1 word replies. So I think a big part of the upset is that she fell and Claire was the only person with her.

It's all absolutely awful 😞

You did nothing wrong. They are grown adults . They are not your responsibility

When you enable “friends” like this to get stupidly drunk with the knowledge that their more sensible friends will look after them if they get too drunk to keep themselves safe…….. then they come to think it’s acceptable behaviour and they do it every time they go out. They ruin everyone else’s fun while they get absolutely pissed off their faces/throw up/get thrown out by bouncers and then expect you to facilitate them getting home.

If you continue to enable them then they wake up the next day and think last night was hilarious, oblivious to the shit they caused for everyone else. However if it goes wrong, or you refuse to stay and babysit them and take them home - suddenly you are the bad guy!

I don't think you were wrong at all. You were put in a poor position which was created by one person's poor decisions. Yes its good if friends can try to get drunk friends to comply, but having been both the sensible sober friend and the outrageously drunk and non compliant friend, there is only so much you can do. I think it's unfair to scapegoat you as abandoning a drunk person, of you look at it that way, it applies to the entire group. You stayed longer than you had intended and couldn't get either of them to leave with you. I'm really not sure why the responsibility has landed at your feet.

You didn't do anything wrong.

It's a shame your evening was spoilt by them behaving so sillily.

‘Kate there are no victims and nobody is guilty. We are all adults, it was a night that ended badly. You invited Claire knowing what she’s like on a night out, I made it clear I had to leave at 10pm for the bus home and that plan could not change just because Claire was in a state. It’s not either of our faults that you didn’t get to leave the pub at 10, it’s actually Claire’s.’

I’d then tell her to just get over it but that’s up to you 🤣🤣

It sounds like Kate is regretting her decisions but putting the blame on you. Claire sounds like an alcoholic.

We arrived around 2pm, my friend (let's call her Kate) and one of her friends (let's call her Claire) got quickly drunk but Kate sorted herself out by stopping drinking and having lots of water. Claire went very much the other way.

By what you wrote in your OP Claire doesn't even seem to be a friend of yours but Kate's.

Claire started drinking very early and quite heavily by the sound of it, yet continued all afternoon into the night.

You stipulated that you had to get the bus at a certain time and Kate knew this.

She told you to hang on and she'd drag Claire out, she didnt, Clair continued with the drinking, how long did she expect you to wait?

A good friend would have stopped her buying more alcohol much earlier, which Kate should have done rather than blame you for the predicament she found herself in.

She's infact putting the blame on you, if she knows Claire likes to drink such an amount and stay out late she shouldn't be bringing her to meet with friends that are not mutual then expecting them to look after her.

The bus certainly wouldn't have waited for you.

Agreed