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Rise Above: a podcast from Rogers Behavioral Health takes listeners on a journey of education and inspiration as we sit down with mental health and addiction experts and past patients who are changing how the world views mental health and addiction.
You're listening to Rise Above, a Rogers behavioral health podcast where we sit down with Rogers experts who are changing the way the world views mental health and addiction. Hello, listener. Welcome to Rise Above, a podcast from Rogers Behavioral Health. Today, we have a very special guest with us, Brian Cuban. Now Brian is an acclaimed author.
Andrew:He's a speaker. He's an advocate for mental health and addiction recovery. He's also the brother of Mark Cuban, the well known entrepreneur, former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Shark Tank investor. I'm only bringing this up because he's gonna bring his name up a few times during his story, and it helps to get some groundwork on who that is. Speaking of his story, in this episode, we're gonna dive into Brian's personal journey and his insights on overcoming addiction and an eating disorder and the importance of mental health awareness overall.
Andrew:And with that, let's welcome him to the podcast. Brian, thanks so much for being here.
Brian:Thank you, Andrew, and thank you to Rogers Behavioral Health for allowing me to participate.
Andrew:So let's just start with your journey. How did you become an advocate for mental health?
Brian:It all started I started out as an eating disorder advocate back in around 02/2007, and it all arose from my journey through several eating disorders. First, it would have probably been EDNOS back then, eating disorder eating disorder not otherwise specified to start, then I transitioned into bulimia and then dealt with exercise bulimia as a teenager moving through life. And exercise bulimia is obsessive compulsive exercise for the primary purpose of offsetting calories. And it all began dating back to growing up in Pittsburgh in the seventies at a time when no one was talking about body image, eating disorders. Just forget it.
Brian:Right? And I was the middle of three boys growing up. My I have an older brother, Mark, people may know from Shark Tank and the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks. And I have a younger brother, Jeff. Mark, as the firstborn, as you might expect, was outgoing.
Brian:He was entrepreneurial, selling this door to door, selling that door to door. And I remember our printers went on strike shutting down both newspapers. And he and his buddies, barely old enough to drive, went out to Cleveland about 200 miles away, bought their newspapers, drove them back to Pittsburgh, and sold them on the street corner during rush hour for twice what they paid for him. So you knew what he was gonna be. And my younger brother, Jeff, was a nationally ranked wrestler, beer parties, good looking kid, jock.
Brian:He also played football. And all the things that I associated with kind of peer acceptance, love and acceptance. And I was classic middle child syndrome, and I was overweight. I was substantially overweight trending towards obese. And I internalized anything said about me in the negative award as who I was as a as a kind of a skin tight suit.
Brian:And, unfortunately, I also had a difficult relationship with my mother. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about it, but I do not blame my mother for the things I went through. There is a huge difference between cause and correlation. Right? Two people can go through the exact same circumstances and go on two different roads.
Andrew:Sure.
Brian:Yeah. So that's why there's no parent planning here. This was just part of part of it. Yeah. And so there was a lot of fat shaming in my household.
Brian:My mom sold real estate, and every now and then, she would come home during lunch, and I would go home during lunch, and I would be eating chef Boyardee ravioli or beefaroni or SpaghettiOs. I used to love that. I don't know if they still make it. Pull it out of a can. We didn't have a can opener.
Brian:You know, we didn't have an electric can opener with the old style can opener and no microwave. So I'd stick a spoon in and be gobbling it out of the can. And she would walk into the kitchen, and not all the time, but every now and then, maybe she had had a bad day. She was upset dealing with her own mental health issues, which were substantial, and would say to me, Brian, if you keep eating like that, you're gonna be a fat pig. Now these were the things her mother said to her for sure.
Brian:These were the things my great grandmother may have said to my grandmother. Sure.
Andrew:Not an uncommon thing. Right?
Brian:Note that fat shaming in families is often passed down generationally. And but and my mother was dealing with her on mental health issues at a time when women could not talk about that. They couldn't talk about depression. They couldn't talk about psychiatric other psychiatric issues because this was the seventies. And to talk about that, you could risk losing your children.
Brian:You know, if you were also in an acrimonious marriage. Right? And it was a stress on the marriage. So it was just something that was under the floorboards, so it was just never talked. It was just never vocalized.
Brian:But not understanding these things as a 13 year old, 14 year old, I grew depressed and I began to eat more Chef Boyardee and more Chef Boyardee, and I became a even bigger Brian than I was. And it so often happens when kids change for what other kids perceive in the negative at school. For me, it was started in junior high, middle school for some you'd call it middle school for some people. The the bullying increased. I was already being bullied because I was heavy, but the bullying got worse.
Brian:And back then, it was brick and mortar in your face. Right? We didn't have the Internet. Yeah. But it didn't hurt any less, and going viral meant 15 kids in the lunchroom knew about it.
Brian:And we're passing notes and we're whispering and pointing at you. And that is what happened. The bullying increased, and I began to isolate more and more in my bedroom. And it all culminated with what I call the day of the gold pants. So this was during what I don't know if you if you have heard of the disco era.
Brian:The mid seventies, I was a freshman in high school. So Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta, the crazy dances, the crazy clothes. Right? Yep. So if people were too young for this, you can go back and Google the disco era.
Brian:And my brother, Mark, taught disco in Downtown Pittsburgh. And he would come home with these bell bottom pants, platform shoes, which was the dress, you know, dress of the year, collar unbuttoned collar down to his chest. And one day, he walked into my bedroom, which is where I spent most of my time, and he was holding this pair of shiny gold bell bottom satin disco pants, bell bottom. And he said, Brian he called me, Brian, do you want these? And I said, sure.
Brian:And I grabbed him. I love my brother. We're very close then. We're very close now. And I decided I was gonna wear those pants to school.
Brian:But the problem was Mark wasn't a big guy. Those pants fit him fine. I had to jump up and down, spray the water bottle. My butt looked like 15 cats trying to get out of there, but I didn't care. I wore the pants, and the kids made fun of me.
Brian:You know, Brian, you're the the fat pig, called me the fat pig, which I would be a very familiar refrain. They called me beef. That became my nickname beef. And then, you know, you know, you know, you need to go to get Sears and get a bra for your man boobs. All these thing, and they hurt so badly.
Brian:It hurts so badly because in my mind, these taunts, this fat shaming, fat bullying was coming from the people that in who in my mind were the popular kids. Right? I didn't have Instagram. In my vision, the popular kids were the kids I saw every day who were going to the prom, getting their first kiss, going out on dates, going to the football games after school, going to McDonald's after the football games, walking hand in hand down between the lockers and and smooching. The things that just wanted so bad, but didn't feel fat pigs were entitled to.
Brian:And it all culminated. One day after school, I'm walking home with these kids. There were four guys. I'm wearing my shiny gold bell bottom disco pants, and it was a mile walk from the school to our house in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a suburb about nine miles south of Pittsburgh. And the kids are making fun of me.
Brian:They're taunting me, and I took it. And I I was kinda like the sad clown because I felt like if I hung around the outs the outside and just took the bullying and just smiled through it and self deprecated in agreement with them with all these taunts that one day it would be like a fraternity hazing where they'd say, you're one of us now, cubes. Right? And so but that's not how bullying worked. It's not how it worked then.
Brian:It's not how it works today. Walking home, one of them grabs at my shiny gold disco pants at the zipper with my stomach hanging out over, and it rips just a little bit right at the zipper under the waistline. Another kid goes, oh, and he pulls and it rips right down to the crotch. And then the other kids join in, and the next thing I knew, they were on me like wild dogs on a piece of meat. They physically assaulted me.
Brian:They tore my pants off, ripped them into shreds down in my Fruit of the Loom tidy whities, and I was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates t shirt, and they threw them out in the street to shreds. Walked on high fiving, looking back. Cubes, look at you now. Beef. Beef.
Brian:Like they had done the funniest thing ever. Right? Yep. Went out in this busy street cars whizzing by, humming, no one stopping and gathered up the shreds. And I put them over my crotch and waddled home.
Brian:And that walk of shame, that one mile walk of shame might as well have been from Pittsburgh to Seattle. That's how long it felt. And, Andrew, the absolute worst part of that walk that I remember, the absolute worst part were the stoplights. There were two stoplights where I had to stand there in my underwear covered up where people are looking at me and no one is saying anything. No one is rolling down their window.
Brian:Their eyes are wide, mouths open. And those stoplights felt like they took hours. Sure. I finally make it home, and they're the house is empty. My mom's out selling real estate.
Brian:My brothers are doing whatever. My father is in what is known as he he ran a trim shop about two miles away reupholstering car seats, working class guy. And I go down to the basement. It's funeral quiet. And as I walked down to the basement, the stairs squeaked.
Brian:These old blue wooden stairs, they squeaked. And I had never remembered the squeak before. They never really registered, But every squeak felt like a gunshot that ripple into a pond, that rippled out. You know, if you throw a rock into a pond or the ripples of water where my shame rippled out to my brothers who were gonna say, you can't stand up to bullies. That's not what they would have said.
Brian:They would have said, let's go. Who was it? You know, let's go find those guys who would have rippled out to my mother, would have said, I told you so. She wouldn't have said that my mother loved me dearly. Would have ripped out rippled out to my father who was, you're not a you're you're not a Cuban.
Brian:He wouldn't have said that. He loved me dearly. But in the mind of a 13 year old boy was also real. All that projection, that fantasy of shame became reality in my mind. And so I found a trash a waste can, pushed aside the Chef Boyardee cans and the and the newspapers and bury those shreds, hoping they bury my shame, hoping it would never be brought up again.
Brian:Mark would never ask me what happened to his pants, and that would be the end of it. But that's not how trauma and shame work. Shame threads. Trauma threads through life. And they have a way of boiling over at a times when we least expect it, and we don't know that's why it's happening.
Brian:Because I've compartmentalized that shame and told myself I'm over it. Don't want to think about it. And so in all these destructive behaviors, you know, as you go through life, especially as a teen, as a young adult, pre therapy, you may not even understand that is what is going on. And that, Andrew, that is the first time in my life that I remember looking at my reflection, whether it's the bathroom mirror, the mall window, or the car window as I was getting in and seeing a fat pig who would never be loved, never get married, never have a girlfriend, and wasn't worthy of any of that regardless. We talk about snapshot moments in our life.
Brian:That was it. Yeah. That is how it all started. And now can I say it was that and not another, you know, again, cause and correlation are different? But that's what I remember when we talk about, you know, bright white moments.
Brian:That is I could go to that spot in Mount Lebanon, PA and show you exactly that point on the sidewalk where it happened. Right. And so I went through high school really isolating with very few friends. I really learned how to exist in my bedroom. And I was very happy to move on from high school and get away and go to college because I would be able to get away get away from all those people.
Brian:I would be able to maybe re you know, reconstitute my life, you know, have some friends. And so I went on to Penn State University, and it was about a 150 miles State College, PA. And my father drove me. And as luck would have it, half the people I knew in high school, a lot of the bullies went to Penn State as well because that's where everyone went, you know, when you were from Pittsburgh. Right?
Andrew:Great. Yeah.
Brian:Great. So I it was the first day of college. I was living in a dorm with three other people, three other guys, and my father was helping me unpack. And I'm looking out this rectangular window out into the dorm dormitory parking lot. And it's this crisp, cool day.
Brian:Leaves are falling on the cars. People are talking to each other, parents are pulling out luggage and trunks, and everyone looks so excited. And I make eye contact with this curly brown haired girl, and I start sweating profusely. And in a matter of about five seconds, I imagine my entire life with this girl. Because in my mind, you know, she's interested.
Brian:Right? We we make the eye contact. Right. I imagine that we're gonna get met. We're gonna date.
Brian:We're gonna get married and have two and one children, all in a space of five seconds. And then in another two seconds, this sickening feeling enters my stomach like a overinflated beach ball. It wasn't a smile, it was a smirk. She looked at her friends, looked back at me, and made a megaphone mouth with her hands. Ugly.
Brian:Ugly. Oh. Damn. And now I'm not the first kid to have a nasty thing said to him. Right?
Brian:Another kid would've it happened then. It happens now. Another kid would've might've said ugly back. Another kid might've given her the finger or the, you know, the elbow salute. Another kid may have just let it rule off.
Brian:And it did it's not her fault either. And because there are the environmental variables that we go through life are in the millions. But what I remember thinking at that moment was, you know what? She's right. I am ugly.
Brian:I am. She is absolutely right. I don't blame her for stating the truth. How can I not be ugly? How can I not be ugly to this girl?
Brian:How can I not be ugly to to the people I want to make new friends with who are for sure going to reject me because I am? How can I be not be ugly to the bullies or to my mother or this and that? Well, I need to lose weight. If I am thin, I will no longer be ugly to this girl. So I began to restrict my food intake, and this was 1979, and restrict and restrict and restrict.
Brian:I began to starve myself, intentionally skip meals in the cafeteria, and the weight began to come off. And this was at a time this was before anyone was talking to about eating disorders. The wonderful singer, Karen Carpenter, would pass away from complications related to anorexia in 1983, and drummer. She was an incredible drummer in '9 in 1983. So we were four years before that, Andrew, and here I am engaging in eating restrictive behavior, which would probably, as I said, be Ednos back then.
Brian:I know there's a different definition for it now. But and and I and and the weight started pouring off. But you know what? Every time I saw my reflection, you know what I saw? The fat pig.
Brian:Sure. The reflection in the mirror didn't change. And I transitioned into bulimia, binging and purging. And every time I I I was literally starving myself, and one day, I just couldn't do it anymore. And I went in and I binged at a local pancake place, and I began my I began the the the behaviors of bulimia.
Brian:And I camouflaged it in the, you know, common bathroom, and it became very it became reoccurring behavior for me and very self normalized behavior. But and every time I binged and purged, every time I engaged in that behavior, for maybe ten seconds, I felt this feeling of peace. I felt this feeling like everything was gonna be okay, that the next day I would be accepted. The next day I would be, quote, unquote, normal. But then that feeling went away very quickly, and in swept the shame.
Brian:In swept the shame of engaging in an act I did not understand. I did not have a name for. Believe me, I believe I'd only been a clinical diagnosis at that since 1976. And but I knew guys didn't do that. Guys just didn't do that.
Brian:Yeah. But I I had to have that feeling of peace again and again and again. And I was binging and purging on a regular basis beginning at 18 years old at Penn State. That is how it started at 18 years old. I added alcohol to the mix because the bingeing and purging wasn't helping wasn't changing how I feel, so I just decided I won't feel at all.
Brian:And there is a a 50% I believe the current status, fifty percent co occurring rate between eating disorders and substance use disorder. And I did add alcohol to the mix, and by the time I left Penn State, I was an alcoholic. I was binge still bingeing and purging at 21 years old, and I had added exercise bulimia to the mix. I was going out. I became a runner, a long distance runner, and I was running 10 miles a day, then up and get to 20 miles a day.
Brian:And, you know, it's interesting how this all started. I it start you know, I began doing it, adding it to feel better about the weight loss and everything. But when I was going to Penn State, we the Penn State Nittany lines. Every Saturday, there would be tens of thousands of people walking to the football games. And I would be watching these people out my dorm window feeling as lonely as I have ever been, watching all these people, like in high school, holding hands, laughing, and I wanted to be included so badly and go to these games.
Brian:Right? And laughing and having a good time with these kids, but I had no friends and, again, isolating. And so what I decided to do was I would go on these long runs while the football games were going on. So I was upping my run step to 20 miles a day, and I would come home hours later, and the football game would be over, and I felt like I dodged a bullet. And that is how I got into exercise.
Brian:I transitioned into exercise bulimia, or I should say, slipped into it. And I would go to the bars at Penn State, and I would buy a bottle of tequila, a little one of those tiny bottles. I I wore I would buy I had cowboy boots, and I put them in a cowboy boots. And I would walk out into the alleys at State College where the bars were, and I would slug this, you know, I would down this tequila to get drunk, go into the bars. Hopefully, I would be a different brine, and I would just get more depressed.
Brian:I would go out, and then I would buy a two pound bag of M and M's or a pizza. I would eat it in depression, and I would then boom, bulimia, engage in the behavior. And this became a brutal cycle for me at Penn State where I was in a constant state of dehydration. I was often weak, very weak, and I was very lucky as I looked back, I didn't have a stroke. That is how that all started.
Brian:And no matter what I did, whether it was alcohol, binging and purging, the running to offset the calories, I still saw that fat pig in the mirror. Andrew, what was going on was the initial beginnings of what is known as body dysmorphic disorder. And what body dysmorphic disorder is, it's when you take a nonexistent or even perceived defect, not a visual delusion, but obsessive compulsive overwhelming feeling that you see this different person in the mirror. And it builds up to a place where you binge and purge or do this or do that. And for me, it was the fat pig.
Brian:No. What I did, no matter what I did, no matter what behaviors I engaged in, I saw that fat pig. And as a youngster, as a young man in his early twenties, the only toolbox behaviors I had were bad. Right? They were bad.
Brian:My toolbox had not my recovery toolbox and mental health toolbox had nothing in it. Sure. Know, into the eighties, early eighties. Right? Yep.
Brian:So I cycled through these behaviors in the beginnings, you know, kind of and it would roll through life to cycle, cycle, cycle, and never and just engaging, and it never, you know, made me feel any better. So I graduated from Penn State as an alcoholic with a with a severe believe me. I I mean, literally, you know, binging and purging multiple, multiple sometimes multiple times a day, you know, multiple times a week, call and and the running, and the and the obsessive compulsive running behavior to make me feel that there was something positive to it. And I began running marathons as well starting in 1983 because it was the one thing I could do that I actually was I could look at myself. I could do it alone, and I was actually pretty good.
Brian:I had some pretty good times, but it wasn't for a healthy reason.
Andrew:So wait. Did your family, like, know something was wrong, or do they just think Brian likes running now?
Brian:Brian likes running. Remember, this is 1983. There was there was no there was no awareness of this. Yeah. There there was the first marathon I ran, I believe, was the San Francisco marathon.
Brian:And I ran a time in the March, which I was happy with. Right? It was a good time. And my parents and I think my family was thrilled that I had found something Sure. That I was good at and did.
Andrew:Yeah.
Brian:In their mind, I was finally finding myself. So and they knew nothing about the eating disorders, and, you know, I camouflaged it. And I was only home, you know, during breaks and stuff. And so no. No one knew anything.
Brian:And to me, I'm like, yeah. I can do this. I'm good at this. And so I went through Penn State like that.
Andrew:And we will be right back. Everyone deserves a chance for recovery. That's what drives Rogers Behavioral Health Foundation. They're helping people get the mental health care they need from covering treatment costs for those in need to building clinics where care is hard to find to funding cutting edge research. They're making real change happen.
Andrew:And guess what? You can help. Head to rogersbhfoundation.org and be part of creating a future where mental health and wellness thrive. And now back to the interview.
Brian:I wanted to be a police officer. I was a criminal justice major. And I'm sitting in the I'm sitting in the office going through police officers' jobs, and and this is this is in state college. And there are two guys next to me who are in my major, and they're talking about going to law school. I stopped looking, and I start listening.
Brian:I'm leaning in. Right? And I'm thinking, you know what? This might make sense for me, not because I wanted to be a lawyer, not because I wanted to be the next Clarence Darrow or emulate Atticus Finch, because law school is three years. I could go to law school, not have to go out in the world, and I can engage in the exact same behaviors that I had ownership of.
Brian:Right? My eating disorder belonged to me. Yeah. My eating disorders belonged to me. My alcoholism belonged to me.
Brian:My and if no one was gonna take them away from me. And these things were tools of dysfunctional tools of survival to me. Sure. Right? Because I was existing just at the tip of my nose, not looking three years down the road, like graduate law school is three years, not looking to a career.
Brian:I was looking just at the tip of my nose. And these behaviors you remember Snoopy and Linus carried around his little blanket? His dirty little blanket, if you remember Snoopy That people was my Linus security blanket, those behaviors, and no one was going to take those away from me. For those reasons and those reasons only, I decided to go to law school. So I got into the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and I walked into the law school.
Brian:Now this is nineteen eighty nineteen eighty three, so I'm 22. I walked in as an alcoholic with two eating disorders, And, you know, and it was and as you might expect, that's not quite the resume for success in law school. I was able to do okay at Penn State because you take a test, you pull an all nighter, you get the grades in a straight percentage grading. But in law school, you're competing with everyone else who has done well in college. So I graduated and I engaged in the exact same behaviors.
Brian:And just no one knew. And I graduated near the bottom of the class, and I was very lucky to graduate. But now I I graduate rinse, wash, repeat 1983 1986 now. And now I'm 25 years old. I'm graduating law school as bulimic, exercise bulimic, now with, you know, body dysmorphic disorder.
Brian:I had no idea what that was. Sure. But looking back. Right? And I have to make those same decisions.
Brian:What am I gonna do with my life? I wasn't a good law student. So I decide that I'm going to move to Dallas, Texas, 1986. I took the Pennsylvania bar. I contacted both of my brothers who were living together in Dallas, and I said, I'm coming.
Brian:I'm moving in with you. Come on down. So I took a Greyhound bus to Dallas. My older brother, Mark, met me at the Greyhound bus station, and I moved in with him. And it was like throwing gasoline on a fire because, you know, they did they're out young.
Brian:They're dating. They didn't do drugs, but they're going to parties, having a good time. And so I fit right in, right, as my drinking escalated, my bitching and purging. I I didn't know what eating disorders were. And then in the 1987, I discovered the one thing the one thing that allowed me to finally look in the mirror and love myself for the first time in my 26.
Brian:I discovered cocaine. I discovered cocaine. I did that first line of cocaine in a bathroom in a nightclub in Dallas, Texas, the 1987. Looked in that mirror, Andrew, and I loved myself. I looked in that mirror and everyone loved Brian.
Brian:I looked in that mirror and those girls upstairs in the bar, they're gonna love Brian. My mother loved Brian and she did love me. And, you know, all the people that I thought hated Brian, that curly brown haired girl loved Brian. Suddenly, Brian was cool. So I go up to that stairs, mac daddy, you know, dancing, and but the high wore off.
Brian:Suddenly, Brian hated Brian again. Brian had to love Brian again. I found that guy. I gave him my last $100 in my pocket for a gram of cocaine. And, again, remember the substance use disorder and eating disorders, 50% correlation.
Brian:And so Brian loved Brian again and again and again. Cocaine, the alcohol, and the eating disorder, both of them still. I'm still trying to run. I'm doing cocaine. And they all became a cycle part of my life.
Brian:And I also got into anabolic steroids. I began buying anabolic steroids on the black market, very common with body dysmorphic disorder. And, Andrew, I got huge. This was going into the nineties, and I got huge. And I think there are pictures of me on my Facebook page, and I was massive.
Brian:And but guess what? What did I see when I looked in the mirror? Bad pig. Bad pig. So here I am.
Brian:I call it the core of body dysmorphic disorder. You know? And all these dysfunctional behaviors with the spokes are the spokes, And they're just turning around this dysfunctional core, this destructive core, you know, instinctively trying to find something that will allow me to look in the mirror and love myself. The bulimia, exercise bulimia, cocaine, alcohol, now anabolic steroids. And I almost lost my leg.
Brian:I used dirty needles to inject the steroids, got a staph infection, and by the time I had it dealt with, they had to put me on the operating table, and I was very lucky to keep my leg. I still have struggle with issues today. And so that is how I live my life. And as someone who just couldn't look in the mirror and love himself you know, on his own. On his own.
Brian:My family didn't know. My parents didn't know. My brothers didn't know. When I went into the hospital for the surgery, I made up a lie about how it happened. You know, I and then finally, you know, I lost my I lost my career as a lawyer, lost all my clients.
Brian:I went to work for Mark. When Mark bought the Dallas Mavericks, he put me to work for him, and I was showing up to meetings high. I was showing up to meetings hungover, and so he had to pull me out of that. And it's important here to acknowledge privilege because they say eating disorders don't discriminate, addiction doesn't discriminate, but access to recovery resources does discriminate based you know, access to those resource does discriminate based on privilege. I always I didn't want them.
Brian:I didn't wanna take advantage of them, but I had a a wealthy brother who loved me. I had health insurance. I had all of these access to resources, and I don't wanna be intellectually dishonest by people thinking I people you think I'm intellectually dishonest by not acknowledging that I I do know this. Right? Sure.
Andrew:Yeah.
Brian:That that that there was privilege, but that was what the way it was. That was my life. That that that was privilege. And so I went through three failed marriages, all failing because of drugs and alcohol. And I was able to hide my eating disorders from my spouses.
Brian:And so finally finally, I've lost my career, and I was kind of working for Mark. And now we're, you know, up to mid the mid two thousands. I've been in jail for DWI as well and really not doing anything. Really not doing anything because I was a mess. I was a complete mess.
Brian:I was I I I went into heart issues because of the cocaine and the bingeing and purging, you know, and all of that was causing arrhythmia issues. And then January 2006, I was out and I met a girl, and we started dating. She didn't know anything about my issues. And I had a JD in law, but I had a PhD in lying. I was a great liar.
Brian:And we moved in together. And I remember when she moved in to me, one of the buddies I partied with, who didn't know about my eating disorder either. The guys I did cocaine with and all these other things didn't know about my eating disorder because in my mind, that was so shameful. Right? It was so shameful.
Brian:Now I'm in my forties and going my feet. And I wasn't gonna tell these people about my eating disorder. This was I was complete sole ownership of that because they'd be like, what? In my mind, just like when I was 18, guys don't do that. That is some stigma.
Brian:Right. It was more acceptable to do blow, drink, and do all these other things and, you know, say, yeah. Let's go, then admit I had an eating disorder. That that was the stigma.
Andrew:And we will be right back. Real quick, I wanted to take a moment to talk to you about WISE, the initiative for stigma elimination. It unites people across the nation to support those touched by mental illness and addiction. The compassionate approach champions personal stories and powerful connections, fostering healing by reducing stigma through evidence based practices. Rogers Behavioral Health supports the work of WISE through their community learning and engagement department.
Andrew:WISE collaborates with a diverse network of organizations and individuals united in the fight against stigma. You can learn more about Wise, explore their four key programs, and connect with them by visiting the website www.eliminatestigma.org. And now back to the interview.
Brian:So this girl moves in with me, and Easter weekend two thousand and seven, she knew nothing. She goes away for the weekend. I'm thinking, okay. I'm gonna go out. I'm gonna have a good time.
Brian:She'll come back in two days, and I'll be showered. Everything's gonna be fine. Andrew, the next thing I know, it's two days later. I'm in bed. She's looking down at me.
Brian:I'd had a blackout. I'd had a drug and alcohol induced blackout, and there's cocaine scattered everywhere. There's Xanax. I was also using Blackmark and Xanax. And she's looking.
Brian:You know, she's a lawyer as well, and she's trying to figure out, I think, if she walked in the right house. I'm trying to figure out what lie I can tell getting my senses to explain this law and order episode orgy of evidence that I just might not be the person I represented myself to be.
Andrew:Right. Yeah.
Brian:And I asked her to take me to a psychiatric facility that I had been to back in 2005 where my brothers took me when I decided to end my life by suicide. Yes. I've been to a psychiatric facility twice. They came in and dragged me down there when I had a 45 automatic on my nightstand. And so she think she's like, you've been to a psychiatric facility?
Brian:Yeah. We'll talk about that later. I just need time to think of a better lie to explain what there is no other explanation for. So we're standing up this parking in this parking lot for the second time in my life, And I'm thinking, she's gone because she's crying and yelling and but she didn't go. She stood by me.
Brian:We dated for over a decade while I found addiction recovery, eating disorder recovery, BDD recovery. And now we've been together for almost twenty years. Not all relationships will survive that boiling cauldron of trauma, but ours was able to because she's a saint and because I did the work. Right? I had to do the work because spouses do leave.
Brian:You know, spouses die, parents die, pets die, and trauma is a is a very well known trigger, strong trigger for eating disorder relapse or addiction relapse, all kinds of things that we use, all kinds of behaviors that we use to cope. And so I I thought there wouldn't be another trip back because I'd be dead. And I remember thinking of one more thing in that parking lot. I thought about my father. My father, who is the veteran of two wars, the greatest generation, fought he was a CB, fought in Okinawa, the battle of Okinawa, fought in Korea.
Brian:He and his brother operated an auto trim shop for over forty years until his brother died. My father was the middle of three boys like me. And he used to say to my brothers and I growing up all the time, guys, no matter where you go, no matter what happens that life, pick up the phone, tell your brother you love him. Ask your brother if there's anything you can do. And this was the relationship my father had with his brothers, And he was passing down the gift of love of family, which is a privilege.
Brian:And, you know, which is a privilege because, you know, eating disorders create broken families. Eating disorders are tough a lot tougher dynamic can be a lot tougher dynamic than addiction because they're just first, everyone understands addiction. Not every family understands eating disorders. So you have to go through many more hoops with eating disorders in families than you would have with addiction, you know, with the stigma. And so I didn't want to lose that gift of family.
Brian:And at this point, my brothers and my now whites didn't knew nothing about my eating disorder. Now this is 02/2007. And so I didn't want to lose that gift. And if you want to know how that gift stuck, all these decades later, 1,200 miles from Pittsburgh where we grew up, my two brothers and I live walking distance to each other. And my father lived across the street from me until he passed, literally across the street.
Brian:That's how that gift stuck. And so I was finally decided I was ready. Easter weekend two thousand and seven. I walked into the rooms of twelve Step the next day. I sat down and began my addiction, my alcohol and addiction recovery journey.
Brian:But I had not addressed my eating disorder recovery journey. So I walked I went into my therapist's office. I'd be getting therapy, and he didn't know about my eating disorder. I had held that withheld that from my therapist. Again, privilege.
Brian:I had health insurance. Well, why would you withhold that from your therapist? Stigma. Shame goes no hourly wage. I was it was more easier to talk about the blow and the alcohol and all the other stuff.
Brian:I still have not told my doctor, psychiatrist about I was bulimic and exercise bulimic. And I finally started getting honest with him. And we finally started talking about the eating disorder. And he was not an eating disorder therapist. He gave me the options of treatment for addiction.
Brian:Right? Well, you know, I refused to go. I was I refused to go to treatment. I wasn't going to treatment, and I wasn't going to you know, we started and then we started talking about treatment for eating disorders, and I refused. I absolutely refused.
Brian:And this is back in 02/2007, and, you know, there was it was out there. But most and there was just so much stigma. Right? You know, eating disorders, only only women get eating disorders. And and now I'm in my forties, and I still truly believed eating disorders weren't a man thing, weren't a male thing.
Brian:The the stigma was just massive. I thought I was the only guy in the world where here I'm a lawyer, I could have done a bit of research. And back then the stats were ten percent, which I'm not sure would have gave me any level of confidence. Right? Right.
Brian:Now now we know it's more than that. But back then, the accepted stat was ten percent of those with eating disorders or gods. And so we decided, you know, I started going through therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, exposure therapy, CBT, and doing all those things with my with my therapist. And what we did was it was a journey really of self image, and it was a journey where as I began to love myself more, I no longer felt that the compulsion that I had to stick my throat down my stick my finger down my throat or do all these things to love myself. Right?
Brian:And so the feelings began to subside as we began to address the body dysmorphic disorder and that core of shame. And that is really how I began my journey. And I just really you know, I I if I had gone to treatment to a wonderful facility like Rogers or anything like that, you know, maybe the journey would have taken wouldn't have taken as long or would have been a little different, but I try not to engage in revisionist recovery. Uh-huh. Right?
Brian:I have been in eating disorder recovery now, haven't binged and purged in over two decades. You know? And I'm I'm, you know, close to and then same thing with alcohol going in two decades and cocaine. And it was, you know, it was it was it was a path that I wouldn't call traditional, but it was a path that has allowed me to really look at what I went through with my my eating disorder as a team back when back when it was just brutal. I mean, it was the brutal stigma, and that is really what has gotten me to a point where in 2008 or 02/2009, I began to speak out.
Brian:And I wrote shattered image, which was talked about body dysmorphic disorder and my eating disorder recovery journey and decided to let people know that there is there is hope, there is treatment, and it can be it can be dealt with.
Andrew:Yeah. I was gonna ask how long into your recovery did you realize? I wanna help others. I wanna share my story. I'm assuming right away, really.
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. It was it was you know? And you know when that really was? It was interesting.
Brian:I had read an article online about a model named Caroline Reston, And she passed away around 02/2009, and she passed away from complications related to anorexia. And then the I mean, it was a sensational story. Right? Sensationalize talking about her weight loss and this and that and her weight once you dive. And but I remember back when they allowed comments and articles, looking at the comments, and there were some guys.
Brian:Mhmm. There were some guys commenting that they felt so alone, and it wasn't just a woman's disorder. And I'm like, wow. Maybe I have some, you know, personal responsibility, and I'm just talking about me. That doesn't mean everyone has to be an advocate, right, to share my story, and that's what triggered it.
Andrew:And then I guess just touching on the stigma because you've said it a lot. I mean, men and eating disorders. Do you feel like it's improved at all?
Brian:It's been it's been an interesting journey because you're I'm 64 now. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. And so I am not I think it has improved, but it also the stigma has switched other things.
Brian:I mean, more we know now that more guys get treatment, although we wish more would. And now again, we have like Rogers, we have people that have specific male treatment. Back when I was going through this and educating myself, I mean, was one of those few that had male beds. So back when I started, and this would be lucky to even find to find eating disorder treatment that you would go through the female model. Right?
Brian:And so that has evolved. Yeah. And so Rogers had beds for males, had a male treatment program. And so the stigma was just has improved, but I think we have a long way to go still. But maybe it's because I've aged to a different place.
Brian:You know, I still there there is a lot of stigma for older people, and we know that there are people who specialize in eating disorders for people my age and middle age because we know eating disorders can become very treatment resistant as people get older. And so I think Cynthia Bulick out in North Carolina does a lot with that. I know Rogers does does stuff. So, yeah, it's and people it has switched now to TikTok and all these different platforms, which I'm not active on. Right?
Brian:So and it it you know, the the obsession with muscularity and different things like that has has changed based on the mediums in which they are expressed. And so I would be I I don't wanna sit you know, put a number you know, put some kind of percentage on stigma on where we are and things like that Sure. Because I think the forums and the mediums have changed, and there are people who probably know more about it than I do. Absolutely, there is still male stigma. I still get eating I still get emails from males quite often who don't wanna talk about it publicly and, you know, and and and are upset that there isn't more done.
Andrew:So you've kind of become a support system for others.
Brian:Yeah. I do. I I try. I try. Anyone comes to me, I'll I can give them the benefit of my experience.
Brian:Right? Sure. I am not the only thing I am an expert in is my journey. If they are looking for resources, I will give them the resources. I will help them for resources.
Brian:I'll give them the benefit of my journey. But I I leave that to therapists, to people who have the the the the letters after their name.
Andrew:Well, I was gonna ask the
Brian:Other than JD. Other than JD.
Andrew:I was gonna ask about your support system and how important they were for you going through
Brian:your journey. Support system the the the support system that came around me when I put out my story became very important. I went to my first NEDA conference, and that's where I really started to meet, you know, National Eating Disorders Association. I know the structure is a little different now, but back then, they had a lot of conferences, big conferences. So I went to my first one, and that's where I started to really interact with people.
Brian:I'm like, wow. There is a support system of people, males and, you know, females and BIPOC and all the different, you know, all the different, you know, gender gender roles going through eating disorders. And that was very helpful to me knowing that there was a support system of people who absolutely understood the process.
Andrew:So what's next for you? What what's what's in your future? What are you looking forward to?
Brian:I still write. I still write. I I write about mental health. I write about eating disorders. I have a blog.
Brian:It's it's on my on my page at briancuban.com. I still I've ventured into novels now, but I I still go out there and I speak. Right? I I speak, and I'll be speaking at the Rogers Behavioral Health Annual Gala, and I still tell my story because if one person can find treatment and find recovery because of something I said, you know, and that's that's that's a win. Right?
Brian:Yeah. That's a win. There's a I'm Jewish, and there's a phrase called tikkun olem. It means changing the world with social good and acts of kindness. So if I can buy sharing my story, an act of kindness, I think, you know and people can categorize it however they want.
Brian:But if that is an act of kindness, since one person gets help, that's changed the world, at least my little corner.
Andrew:Speaking of help, what what advice would you give someone who maybe your story resonates with them?
Brian:That reach out. Reach out to someone because there are resources, there are people, and I totally get the aloneness. I totally get the isolationism. But there are all kinds of resources and all there's all kinds of love and support and resources. And a lot of times, maybe it's family.
Brian:It's just about education. Right? It is just about education. And today, unlike when I was going through it, the education opportunities are there. And and there may be resistance because p resistance may come from because when people just don't understand.
Brian:And now we have the opportunities to understand, so reach out.
Andrew:Well, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story and everything. I really appreciate your time. Anything else you wanted to add?
Brian:No. Thank you for thank you for having me on. Thank you to Rogers, for for allowing this, and, I'm always happy to share. I'm always happy to let one person know whether it's eating disorder or addiction. Recovery is possible.
Brian:It'll look different for everyone, but it is possible.
Andrew:Thanks again.
Brian:Thank you.
Andrew:Recovery is possible. It's a message that we talk about a lot on this podcast, and we talk about it a lot because it deserves to be said, and it's true. So thank you again for joining us. I hope you enjoyed hearing Brian's inspiring story, and I'm excited to announce that he is going to be the keynote speaker at this year's annual Rogers Foundation Gala. This year's theme is more than a body, reclaiming identity and wellness, and the event will challenge stereotypes and start honest conversations about eating disorders and body image, emphasizing that healing is powerful and possible.
Andrew:The foundation is honored to have Brian Cuban as their keynote speaker. Don't miss the transformative event, December 7 at the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. And thanks again for listening to rise above, a podcast from Rogers Behavioral Health. Be sure to like and subscribe to be notified of new episodes. And as always, if you or someone you care about is struggling with a mental health or substance use disorder, visit rogersbh.org for a free mental health screening.
Andrew:Until next time. Thanks again.