It's just alcoholism, toobs. Drinking constantly like that over years will totally turn you into a mushbrain and age you. I knew a guy who over three years went from athletic with full head of hair to a decrepit, fat, bald & herniated wreck of a man. He drank all day every day.
I have no idea what drugs are like now, but I can venture there's little more exotic than dirty coke, meth, fent, weed and spice in Casper. Research chems were almost always a psychedelic analog with highs in the multi hour range. If cobes was on a research chem we would have for sure seen it.