Simon I hope you aren't projecting, offering to help others struggling with this because you want help in your own struggle.
Naw, man. I'm doing really well these days. It just got kind of gnar back in 2004-2006 as a bunch of emo baggage caught up with me from a previous young adult life of addiction and so forth. It was weird because I hadn't used any drugs or alcohol since 1997 so I was wondering what the heck was going on. I was having mixed episodes of brutal anxiety and depression. I no longer have such episodes.
There are a lot of specific details of how I recovered, but what made all the difference was that before I even realized that I could get counseling and help in my misery, an old friend I hadn't heard from in a long while sent me an e-mail that simply read "how are you doing?"
I was feeling terrible at the time so I responded with honesty "well, not so good...." and I aired out a lot of my troubles to his open ear. Simply because he cared enough to check in on me, the healing process began on that day. The intention of this thread is to kind of pay that forward and let my skateboarding bretheren know that I care in hopes that people in similar circumstances can turn the corner and get better.
PS. I sucked pretty bad against Sticky. The fight vs. Mike Muir in '96 was the one where I had a little pep in my step (check youtube).