Milk-Blood - Simon Adrian

And how do you think you’d turn out if your father was a convicted heroin trafficker?

‘For a reasonably smart guy I’ve done some dumb shit, but I’ve got nothing on my father. His choice in Bangkok, to not flush the heroin, was how my life started. But I’ll be damned if it’s going to define me. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no angel, ask anyone who knows me, but I had to get completely lost so I could find myself.’ Adrian Simon, Milk-Blood

This is not your standard memoir. I am the son of Warren Fellows, the infamous heroin trafficker who was imprisoned in the Big Tiger in Bangkok, and who later published his internationally bestselling memoir The Damage Done. There is a good chance you, or someone you know has read it, but like all good stories there are two sides. Milk-Blood tells the other side.

While my father languished behind foreign bars for 12 years, I was forced to grow up fast, and my mother had to take on some pretty soul-destroying stuff in order to keep us above ground. Thing is, when the flash cars, the big bucks, and the international lifestyle are stripped away, people who claim to have had your back turn on you. Society, the media, they didn’t care that I was just a kid. But unlike my father’s choices, the risks my mother took were out of love, not greed.

As soon as I was able, I took off overseas to “discover” myself, along the way pushing all limits, both mind and body. Turns out I inherited the same wild streak both my parents have, and I learnt first hand how to turn an average set of cards into a winning hand. Albeit at a high cost.

There are natural storytellers and then there are people who have lived a story. The real question that faced me every single day: Would I grow up to repeat the mistakes of my father? Everyone expected me to crash and burn. Who wouldn’t, through all this dysfunction?

If you enjoyed watching Breaking Bad and the story of Pablo Escobar in Narcos, then I think you’ll enjoy this family epic - a powerful read, if I may say so myself. No bars are held here – I tell you, intimately, how it really was. And I don’t come out the hero, trust me! But I don’t turn out too damn bad, either.

Why did I write this? Honestly? To shine a light on the invisible people, like my mother who endured the unimaginable. I’ve been humbled by life but now I’m staking my claim. A person’s reach should always exceed their grasp.