I can't handle my drunk boss
Probably will be a bit long.
I will be keeping this as vague as I can while providing enough context, I apologize if anything is unclear. I've just hit my limit and can't not talk about it anymore.
I work for an incredibly small store. The owner of the store is my boss, who I'll refer to as Boss and they/them (for anonymity reasons). We have less than 5 employees. Typically, one employee is scheduled at the store for the entirety of the store hours a day, and Boss will come to cover our lunches.
Boss is an alcoholic. We've talked about it. Boss has at least one drink over the 30 minute lunch while covering, if not more. I've seen them open them and pour them into their tumbler. Whatever, most of the time they hold it fine, they've been drinking for a very long time and their tolerance is super high. This is typically around mid day.
When Boss has come in to help with the store it's the same too, I've never not seen them with their tumbler and it always contains an alcoholic drink (which if they are around for longer they will continually refill it). On worse days I've watched them add in one of those little 2oz bottles of liquor or just shoot them.
The problem I am really hitting a wall with these days is the frequency with which Boss is coming in drunk approaching shit-faced.
There's usually two scenarios when this happens:
1 - Boss comes in to cover lunch at the regular time and is "fine" (see above, regular amount of daily drinking behavior). Leaves after covering, drinks more over the course of the day and comes back into the store near close drunk.
2 - I go most of the day not hearing from Boss, my usual lunch time comes and goes. Boss eventually comes in to "cover" my lunch much later and is drunk.
When Boss comes in like this, it's horrible.
Boss is slurring their speech, stumbling/tripping over things constantly, gets annoyed to angry quickly, will pester the fuck out of customers and ramble on to them while the customer clearly attempts to extradite themselves from the situation, will touch me much more frequently (not inappropriately but it makes me uncomfortable and I've expressed this), and they smell like alcohol (which they try to mask by dousing themselves in another fragrance). They also do that thing that drunk people who don't want you to know they're drunk do where they make up a bunch of bullshit excuses as to why "they might be acting weird."
It's so uncomfortable. I grew up around alcoholics and it triggers that feeling of helplessness in me. I have to babysit them and if it's while they are "covering" my lunch I can't actually take one because I have to make sure they don't fuck anything up. And then they won't shut the fuck up either. We typically have a casual work environment and will chat about our lives and the goings on when we have time, but when Boss is drunk they go on and on and on about incredibly inappropriate stuff and barely censor themselves or stop when customers come in. Not to mention they usually hang around for way longer when drunk so I'm dealing with it for hours of my shift.
I can't do it anymore, I've tried telling Boss that if they ever "aren't feeling well" I'd be more than happy to just close for lunch/work through the day without lunch if they let me know. It's continued anyways. There are a lot of problems with this workplace but this is the thing I'm getting to my limit with in particular.
I also know that they aren't okay otherwise. Obviously, this kind of behavior doesn't come outta nowhere and we've talked about their struggle lately. But Boss is also a lifelong alcoholic and I doubt me trying to give them a wake-up call would change that, they've been through AA multiple times and are allllllwaaaaays talking about how they should quit but never make an actual effort towards it. They've told me they know alcohol will be what kills them and they just keep going.
I want to talk to them when they're in a sound state of mind and tell them that I cannot continue to tolerate this particular problem, but any time I have ever gently pushed back against them, they respond super emotionally, either crying or angry. Or they launch into how they can't really help their actions since their life is so horrible. The one only time I basically told them I could tell they were drunk (they asked me if I "thought they were acting weird" and I couldn't make myself lie) they got super embarrassed, emotional and eventually said "well look at the shit I have to deal with no wonder I'm like this right now!"
We have no HR, they are the owner of the store. I am the manager and would be the next highest position. I don't know what to do. I love my job otherwise, I make more money than I likely would in a similar position at another company, and I have a good amount of job security in terms of termination as, if I left, the store could not function as I practically run all of the operational duties (another thing Boss has drunkenly confessed to me, and how they don't know how anything works in the store). The state of the job market is also terrifying and it feels easier in every other regard to just coast it out at my current job, but then I'm dealing with this shit (among other things).