You're very lucky to have such good friends. Such people are few and very far between, as is the case in the social wasteland that is Vancouver.

Im in a similar situation just longer terms. Its so hard to get back into the swing of things, the longer you take off. Care to relay some advice?

@Feel fortunate
Sure. Try to find out what you can control and what you cannot. Personally I lost track of that line and I ended up heavily lost in relativism. I've started making myself a small accessible list of things I can control and can refer back to.
SAMPLE (Different for everyone)
- You can control your personal environment to an extent.
- You can control how you treat others
- Try to be someone you love and that you're proud of
- Start small

When I lost control, I turned to over-indulgence in vices. Personally, vices were just a new way I could control things in my life, except I was at the mercy of them. So I was only in control of myself in a defensive manner.

I'm quite stubborn. Exchanging lessons with other stubborn friends helped me see the cliffs I was heading for. If you're having trouble finding the buddies that would help you, consider spending a day imagining the trajectory you want. It's not a day wasted.

As for being foremost in the dirt. I think a trap we give too much power to is that our emotions are effects rooted in reasons. We like to think we're logical creatures. Sometimes we just feel and can end up looking to legitimize our reasons. It's not to say our reasons for feeling crappy are bogus, just that we can end up creating crappy, ingrained, patterns. See if you can make some new patterns; maybe for no other reason than to see what happens.

Cool. Bet you 10 Doge coins you got this Feel fortunate ;-)