In my world any day can be a difficult day and that’s just fine. It means every day is just an ordinary day. In my world with my outlook, any day where things are not quite ordinary, be they more interesting and fascinating, or dull and awkward, I keep myself calm and collected with a bit of self maintenance. My world was a shocker, it used to be a daily nightmare for me and could easily turn into a nightmare of worry for any who might encounter me. I guess that is why I became a fellow of last resort.

These days though, as I know, with a little application and self maintenance, each day remains an ordinary day, even when the most extraordinary things are happening.

I was always cool in a crisis, and any crisis was manageable for years. I was able to keep a cool head because in essence I learned very young ways and means of detaching myself and keeping my emotions suppressed. In my world from an age of recollection I learned to be able to keep my emotions in check and never let on to anyone the inside turmoil going on, until things were so extreme and then I’d always find space and isolation to deal with them.

To the outside world I maintained my cool, and cool of course these days is a cool place where as a Dude of the world, we can deal with any shit and get on with life. What a fucking crock that is, being cool under pressure, being able to suppress our emotions as a normal way of behaving. What a cheat on ourselves and those around us, what a way to live!

The virtue of cool. The man of clear thought, the man who keeps his head while all around him are losing theirs. Well when the need for action is there and a cool head is required, maybe for short periods, we need our cool. All the time though and we are so jacked up with shit we are a time bomb, we never deal and work our shit out and its building behind a dam, and a dam will breach one day and we will break, or die.

Dying a death is preferable when the dam is breaking and any way to release the pain is sought, to get oblivion so fast we don’t need to feel that crash to where? Not just to earth, like normal folks, it’s a crash taking us so deep into the dark we find it hard to make sense anything and the result is more oblivion and lots of it. A crash like this for a cool Dude is as magnificent in its size as a calamity to the Dude like me, who has lost it. Lost it big time, no more cool and no more dependable, no more ice man in a crisis. When the dam breaks there is no safety net for a Dude like me, except oblivion, or death.

By the time of my dam breaking I had stored up years of cool and a dam so big, I was overwhelmed with memories and crises so big, it was like an avalanche of snow down a mountain, like a river in flood and no end to rain. It was a deluge played over and over in my mind, and nothing to cling to. And it was beyond my control. The unleashing of years of stored and pent up suppression of tragedy, bursting out and no control. I was a wreck. Death and break ups, major changes in lifestyles and anything the world had thrown my way came bounding up out of deep memories, all splurging and merging and nothing would separate them in my mind. An overwhelming torrent of pain and fear. Oblivion was my saviour and death was sought, but avoided, not for my own benefit, but because it would have been catastrophic for those left behind. I did not die, I was already dead, I did not end it, or it would end others. I was caught in a trap. Oblivion, self medicated dark and gloom of a bottle of last resort.

It could have been pills, any drug, any fix for oblivion, any fix open to my human mind to make me forget those nightmares. Countless moments played over with friends and women, making good memories that were short lived, to cover the awful awful deep of pain never expressed. And the sadness in me if anyone got too close in case I let them see that pain. At arms length, the happy man might fall down and lose his cool.

My last resort I thought in isolations gloom to rid my mind of memories that seemed impossible to shift as they swirled on and on, and on my own that dark time when the bottle of grog multiplied over and over, never stopping and never satisfying the need for oblivion. Nothing shut out the living nightmare in my mind, nothing could build my dam back and shut and suppress what time had not dealt with and me in particular. Cool was dead. And I kept on living.

And in that living hell, there comes a moment when we know without doubt this as bad as it can get without ending everything. And it seemed whatever happened next could be no worse and nothing could shut my mind. In the depth of absolute alone, Alone I would die and I could not stop.

Until the fellowship of last resort. And this was my start and my stopping. Rock bottom. Empty, no resource inside. No answers, nothing but madness and pain dished out day after day. That was Rock bottom.

And it struck me I had no answer, that I had no resource left even my will to live had long deserted me. And if it seemed in the last throws I had reached the final torment, and I could not do anything, then maybe if this was a bad as it could be, then nothing could be as bad again. And I was not dead, well not yet.

I picked up a phone and called my Shrink. It was my last resort. As a result, I left everything, and anything and went on a journey of last resort. That journey, not to be shared here for now, more on that later.

Its years past to now. And when people talk of last chance, I had been dealt all mine, all mine I could find or encounter. Until I reached the fellowship of last resort. That fellowship is Alcoholics Anonymous, the very last resort of the drinking classes. The last resort only to death and dying over and over on a daily basis till our bodies give up long after our minds are gone.

There was no magic, there was pain, there was no comfort, there were nightmares, there was no cure, there was recovery. And in the early days of my madness and my admission when I had nothing left to keep me going, there was my fellowship of last resort.

And as a last resort, when nothing in my world worked, least of all me, a change began. It had been as bad as I could endure, as bad for any human has endured and will again. It was the beginning of my acceptance to being human again. And being human again meant I had to start again, as nothing worked whatever I did on my own, except self destruction of course.

Full of pride for many a year and full of shit never reconciled. Full of everything we would wish never to hold on to, I got to last resort, on my own and alone. And then fellowship. A place of acceptance. A place where no matter how awful and how long we have tried to get back what we were, we were accepted for being broken, for being human and beyond help. The world does not love a sinner, I can attest. The world turns its back when a person cannot help themselves, yet here was a fellowship designed and run by people of last resort.

And the people of last resort, when they were clear of their compulsions to self harm became human again, as long as they stayed sober. And they dealt with all their shit on a daily basis, and they lived through the good and joyful, and they did the same with every tragedy we encounter, every misery, every death tolling blow, a day at a time. And they seemed remarkable. They seemed to have something I could never dream about being. Just being plain ordinary again.

When I realised I could be ordinary and the equal of life, where it was ok not be cool and that was cool, where it was right to get things sorted every day as we go and not to hide our shit away, I felt I could find out and do that too. I needed them and they said they needed me. I found myself a fellowship. A fellowship of last resort it may be, and I had my entry fee paid up, I had lost my life and living was gone. And from that darkest moment, I was in. I gave up one thing and got my life back, oblivion.

So on a daily basis, when I need help to see me through the day, I go most days to my fellowship of last resort. Revering and reclaiming parts of me, I had lost time and hope. A new life, not like my old, and without a trapping of success. I lost everything and my humanity, before I got to join, I started learning to be human again very carefully and just one day at a time.

Back to being a learner, with the benefits of living a life. It hard and easy and difficult, just like any other ordinary fellow. I am learning to live from scratch as is often remarked, from a life of living hell, making gentle steps in recovery, and gentle with myself. Making bridges back to living, making bridges back to all life, courtesy of what were the dregs of society, now a fellowship of first resort. I would not be without them now, as fellowship means for me, a day at a time I learn to live, and live with joys and pain, just learning to be an ordinary man again. Smiles, I was never an ordinary man, after all, all human life is special, me no exception, just no bigger or smaller or of less importance than any other on this planet… A fellowship of first resort, who would have thought it? Not me, not on my life, not in a lifetime of lifetimes. We are not alone if we choose our path so.