Sticking my Nose where it doesn't belong
I have tenants who live upstairs. It's a mother and her 12-year old boy. They think of us down here as part of their family. The mother, unfortunately, is clearly an alcoholic. She is drunk within a half hour of getting home from work every night. And she has started to not get up in the morning to take her kid to school; the both of them ending up "playing hooky" as she calls it (she from work and him from school). He is failing math and his attendance at school just keeps getting worse. I want to help but I don't know how. I've tentatively told her a few times I'm worried about her and even offered to take her to an AA meeting. It has done no good. The best I have come up with at this point is to offer a little structure and discipline to the kid as I can without completely interfering. If I see him push her around I tell him to stop, with some success. If she needs him to do something I'm the one who gets him to do it. But that isn't helping the underlying problem. I fear I am at a loss to help. Overall, I wonder if it is really any of my business even.