Stella, I think it depends on the type of friend. I have a few friends I never want to be around when they drink because they turn into ogres. There are others I don’t mind. I think it comes down to the quality of friends. There’s all these studies about how you are the company you keep (if your friends are overweight or all drink in excess you’re about 50% more likely to be the same). These days, I don’t know any of my close friends who want to go to a bar where they can dance on a table and scream “SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS” to an LMFAO song. Instead, they’d rather sit at a quiet pub, catch up, and laugh which was what public houses used to be. I think that’s why you’ve seen taprooms for microbreweries explode and more of them becoming family friendly. There’s a great quote by Hunter S. Thompson I think hold true in this regard:

“There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says ‘Good people drink good beer.’ Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it.”

When you have people mainlining Bud Light, it’s not to enjoy the beverage, but to get crunk to the game most often. Why do you think most bars have McCormick’s as their well vodka? People aren’t drinking it cause it’s tasty, they plan to get annihilated as fast as possible. And if that’s most of my friend’s plan for the weekend, then they can surely count me out. That sounds like one fistfight away from a jail cell.