Don't ditch your old friends! Only being with positive people is a worthless piece of advice. The most developing of all, as in personal development, is to socialize with different people. We are more complex than that, there are a lot of people hanging out with nutheads/depressed people all day and they are still great personalities (who says a nuthead can't be anyway) and feeling great/being highly "conscious".
Also, watch out for placebo. I would advice you not to do any drastic changes in your life for a couple of months. You will see things more clearly then.
