Part of the problem with that is that in the modern world, we use the word "friend" too quickly, too easily, and continue to use it even after that person has demonstrated that they are not friends.
If you have acquaintances that you call friends, quite subconsciously you'll have less regard for them than for family. And that might actually color how you'd regard true friends.
I've only ever had a handful of friends in my entire half-century life. An exceptional person might have 8 or 10 or something like that. I doubt that most people have had any at all. The modern world isn't very good at cultivating real friendships.
My cousins all died from meth and alcohol before any of them reached the age of fifty, but after bleeding my parents of significant sums of money. I hold my friends in much higher regard.
So, your family held the cousins in such low regard that they self-medicated and fell off the edge of the world... somehow they're the ones that caused you to hold your friends in higher regard? You speak from bitterness that they've done you wrong, but did you ever do them right in the first place?
Which of your friends would stick with you if things got tough? Which would let their lives go off the rails for a chance to put yours back on them? What norms would they flout to protect you, in other words, which of them could you call certain they'd help you get rid of the body?
Also friendship is way too atomized. My parents had friends we called aunt and uncle and the entire family was friends. It's not a relationship between individuals, but between families, like marriage.
If you have acquaintances that you call friends, quite subconsciously you'll have less regard for them than for family. And that might actually color how you'd regard true friends.
I've only ever had a handful of friends in my entire half-century life. An exceptional person might have 8 or 10 or something like that. I doubt that most people have had any at all. The modern world isn't very good at cultivating real friendships.