I've been playing for about 10 years now, lessons would help you greatly.
I never took lessons properly but around a year ago I started to take lessons mainly to increase my playing speed, the guy i use/used is based in Sedgefield, he is a bit of a shread-head (but if the likes of Vai, Satriani, Yngwie, Lukather are your thing then he is definately your guy)
Maybe possibly have a mint Epiphone SG for sale, I rewired it about a year ago with decent componants only downside is the string action is quite high as I was using it mainly for slide.