On 13^th May, Year 12 pupils were treated to Ian Mahony giving his superb talk “A Slow Crash” as part of their Wellbeing programme.

Iain had a successful academic and sporting education at Uppingham where he was a school prefect and House Captain and went on to graduate with honours from Manchester University before taking a lucrative job in Mayfair. But beneath his confident exterior lurked his demons: low self-worth, anxiety and a desperate desire to please others. Iain turned to new demons to ease his pain, cocaine, skunk and alcohol, and so began a dark phase of his life.

Iain told his story of addiction and eventual recovery with great clarity and honesty, enabling our students to relate to the causes of addiction and understand the devastating consequences. Year 12 pupil Xenia P kindly sent the following message of appreciation, echoing the feelings of many in the year group:

“I just wanted to thank you for this wonderful talk. I’ve spoken with many in our year and I just wanted to pass on some comments as well as mine: everyone was very overwhelmed with the talk and was completely fixated on Iain’s words. We all thought that despite this heavy topic he delivered it which such clearness. Some people could associate with parts of his life and they all felt very grateful that he stood here and told us about his experience. 

I just wanted to say that I commend him for standing up in front of a hundred students and sharing his story with us. I think all of us feel so proud of him that he is eight years sober right now. I’ve never encountered someone who has had a drug addiction and being able to listen to a story of someone who did gave me a lot of perspective. I think it is amazing how strong Iain is in surviving this period of his life. I hope he knows just how inspiring and strong he is.”