An impactful bit of writing by Jake Maynard in Electric Lit about how bros in small towns bond over drinking, and only drinking, and how that stretches out over time:

His drinking had gotten bad, but I don’t remember asking him about it. I don’t remember ever asking him about anything real, but this I know: after he’d passed out with the stereo blaring, Brian and I gathered the empties and built pyramids of cans around his house. One on the toilet seat, another in the shower. One outside of his bedroom door, rigged to collapse, and another on the hood of his car. The piece-de-resistance was one on his coffee table, head-high and gleaming like a shrine, which I suppose it was. Brian and I stood marveling at our work before we tiptoed away, giggling like imps.

I don’t know if Cody thought it was funny. The next time I saw him was his funeral.

It’s a familiar story, I’m a bit older than Jake – for me it was Dazed and Confused rather than Superbad, but the story is the same. After going away to school for a couple of years, it was impossible to figure out how to maintain friendships with the good old boys without booze or other substances.

I don’t go back often, and when I do, I say silent prayers that I don’t run into some of them. I don’t drink anymore so there’s almost nothing to say.