Hello everyone, my best friend, lets call him Mark, had some issues with anxiety lately and I am not sure how best to help him. I'll try to be as brief as possible but I think a full context is important.

I am friends with Mark since he was 17 and I 16, that was 10 years ago. Since I knew him he had a bit of anger issues and had a very pessimistic, almost cynical, view on life. Some bad things happened to him in his childhood that I believe led to this mentality. 

Fast forwards 10 years to January 2021, he started having anxiety attacks and sleeping 1-2 hours a night. From what he told me he fears that he will lose his job and because of that his girlfriend will leave him and that causes him anxiety. He works for a common friend that we both know since childhood and their company had issues lately and he hasn't been payed for a while. 

After these attacks he realized he had to make a change. He uses to smoke a lot of weed and when these started he gave it up for good and it got better. He still has trouble sleeping from time to time but its much more rare. 

Now, his girlfriend is really great and she loves him a lot, I do not believe there are no chances of she breaking up with him unless he worries so much about it that it makes it happen. She does really well financially and she told him that its literally no issues that he hasn't been payed and everything will be fine.

Since we stayed at home since Covid we thought in our group of friends that it would be a good idea to go on a road trip in August to the sea. He said he doesn't want to come as he has no money, doesn't like travelling and is scared about Covid. Both me and his girlfriend told him money is no issues, like I would gladly give him the money for the trip and never need it back. We are all vaccinated and would take every precaution against Covid that we can (kn95 masks, avoid crowded places, industrial quantity of disinfectant).

I really believe that the trip will do him good, and would help him get better and improve his mood. I think most of his anxiety come from the fact that he doesn't do much besides work and playing video games. I keep encouraging him to come but I am starting to think that this maybe isn't the best course of action. He keeps saying he will come, then next days has a breakdown and says he doesn't want come, then a couple days after he is coming again and so on.

So I though it would be a good idea to ask in here. What would be the best way to go about it, should I keep encouraging him to do things he doesn't want to? Does that make the anxiety worse? Should I just let him figure things out on his own, even though I fear he will never make the necessary changes if I do so?

If there is anything unclear I would gladly answer any question that would help you give me better advice.

Thank you all for reading and have a great day.