mener une vie de bâton de chaise

to live a thoroughly disorderly life

Describes someone burning the candle at both ends, always out, never quite behaving.

Depuis son divorce, il mène une vie de bâton de chaise, entre soirées et voyages improvisés.

Since his divorce, he's been living a reckless, chaotic life, between parties and spur-of-the-moment trips.

Goes back to the 19th century and the sedan chairs carried through Paris streets on two long wooden poles. Nobody's fully sure whether it's because those poles were forever being picked up, put down and shifted about, or because the porters themselves led a footloose life, hanging around gambling dens and other disreputable spots while they waited, poles in hand so nobody nicked them.