It's absolutely sickening. Should be able to be held until complete understanding, remorse and willingness to change has been evidenced and seen by at least three different evaluators. Even then, driving should be off the table. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and clearly this person has so much wrong in their life that getting behind a wheel should have never been an option.
But enforcing it is the issue - the majority of dickheads who are going to drive under the influence are going to do it regardless as their reasoning and comprehension are messed up, and they know their chances of being caught are relatively small. Some probably even justify it as levelling them out to actually be able to operate a vehicle.
It probably happens a lot more than we realise. On Christmas Day we undertook the journey to pickup the mother in law and on to my sister's for Christmas dinner. On the way there the police presence was obvious, especially around the M60 and into East Manchester. But on the return journey, not a copper to be seen yet the roads were evidently at the mercy of a few drivers who'd partaken in Christmas boozing. Swerving from lane to lane, panicking when they see those speed cameras at the last minute near Bredbury and slamming on the brakes, glare of their phones shining back from their windscreens. It's undoubtedly got worse and a lot do it, I feel, is because many think they'll get away with it nowadays. Less police presence, less room in prisons means less severe punishments. I know they say you get less liberal as you get older but at this point I'm almost in favour of the death penalty returning! Failing that, use the cons to restart British business in huge Chinese-style sweatshops, no wage, just bed and board.
It's not just boose and drug related either. A friend of mine saw a car hit a cyclist in Handforth last year, it didn't stop despite the person being stuck under the car and several witnesses on broad daylight, and it took multiple other motorists to block her in to get her to stop a few hundred feet down the road. Turns out she had no insurance, and I think never actually had a license, but happily took her kids on the school run daily for years. The cyclist did not survive.