Ian is a 41-year-old graphic designer and aspiring art therapist. In this excerpt from my book The Eccentrics – out in 2016 – we hear about his mostly innocent childhood and how drugs and alcohol nearly ruined his life.
Ian F. drank his first beer at age 3. That’s right – age 3.
“I actually used to have a photo of my first drink, provided by good old mom and dad,” Ian says. “Completely passed out, face down, in the winter [laying in the snow], probably New Year’s Eve or Christmas. I remember seeing the picture and thinking ‘this explains a lot!’”
Explains a lot indeed. Ian would go on to take LSD on a regular basis, smoke crack, and at its worst, eventually drink a half-gallon of vodka every day.
Ian had an otherwise happy childhood. Mom was stay-at home. Dad was a tool and dye engineer. He was also an alcoholic, emotionally abusive and later, hit Ian and would steal school loan money from him. “He threatened to shoot me and my wife once,” Ian says.
They lived in the “middle of nowhere,” among the cornfields of rural Illinois. He and his friends would play in burnt-out barns and collect horse skulls. They would also hang out in the creek, hunting fish, snakes, and crayfish. And light off firecrackers.
Young Ian was never allowed to watch TV unless it was educational programming on PBS. Instead, he read books. Mom demanded he read books like the Hardy Boys novels, Nancy Drew, War of the Worlds or Robinson Crusoe and she required that he write book reports on them. This was outside the confines of school, where he excelled in art classes, English and history. He describes his personality at school as “very quiet” and “socially withdrawn.”
In high school, he finished early, so he was doing something right.
However, at 15, he attempted suicide. “I started hanging out with the punk rock kids,” he says. “I was just doing weird things with my hair, listening to depressing music. Everyone would share a bottle and I would be like ‘I want mine. You guys have your drink. I’ll have my jug. Leave me alone. Party time.’”
Ian started cutting himself. He was taken to the psych ward one day, in the white padded room and kept overnight for supervision. He was prescribed Prozac but didn’t want to take it. “I was afraid it would cure me,” Ian says. “I liked the thrill of being out of control. With the mania and the depression, I liked pushing how far you could go in either direction… It’s just overwhelming and it’s fun.”
Do you relate to Ian’s story? Leave a comment below. View more excerpts here. And sign up for my mailing list for news about the book.
