{"id":109304,"date":"2025-02-26T18:49:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T02:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/26\/fyi-lawyers-its-eating-disorder-awareness-week\/"},"modified":"2025-02-26T18:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T02:49:16","slug":"fyi-lawyers-its-eating-disorder-awareness-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/02\/26\/fyi-lawyers-its-eating-disorder-awareness-week\/","title":{"rendered":"FYI, Lawyers: It\u2019s Eating Disorder Awareness Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/02\/GettyImages-956963180-620x413.jpg?resize=620%2C413&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-74166\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Would it surprise you to know that males account for over 20% of those with eating disorders? For bulimia, it goes up to 30%. That is what I dealt with for more than 20 years. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A male lawyer binging and purging? What do you say? Yep. That was me. It started my freshman year in college. I carried it through law school and right into the practice of law, not to mention alcohol and cocaine use disorder. Throw in major depression, and it\u2019s not <em>quite <\/em>the recipe for a fulfilling legal career.\u00a0When I first acknowledged the problem, the shame was all-encompassing. I thought I was the only guy in the world who had dealt with an eating disorder. In my mind, it was more acceptable to talk about being an alcoholic or sniffing my legal career away on blow. I also didn\u2019t know that there is a 50% co-occurrence between substance use and eating disorders.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I am approaching 19 years since I last stuck my finger down my throat.\u00a0It hasn\u2019t always been a smooth journey as I still deal with body image issues. Who doesn\u2019t, right?\u00a0Normative discontent is fine. Everyone looks in the mirror now and then and says, \u201cThat sucks.\u201d\u00a0 What I no longer do is engage in destructive behaviors like bulimia to deal with it. Recovery is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eating Disorder Awareness Week started on February 24. If you are a struggling teen, adult, or LGTBQ person, please reach out. Shame is normal. Resources are available.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationaleatingdisorders.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eatingdisorderhope.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eating Disorder Hope<\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n<p><strong><em>Brian Cuban is an attorney, author, and advocate for mental health awareness and recovery. He has spoken at law firms, conferences, nonprofit events, colleges, and universities across the United States and Canada. He also writes extensively on these subjects. His books, columns, and quotes have appeared on CNN.com, Foxnews.com, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and online and in print newspapers worldwide.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>He is also the author of the best-selling book \u201cThe Addicted Lawyer, Tales of The Bar, Booze Blow &amp; Redemption.\u201d His debut novel, \u201cThe Ambulance Chaser,\u201d was released as the #1-selling debut paperback thriller. His follow-up crime thriller, \u201cThe Body Brokers\u201d is now available wherever books are sold and at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.briancuban.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.briancuban.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/02\/fyi-lawyers-its-eating-disorder-awareness-week\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FYI, Lawyers: It\u2019s Eating Disorder Awareness Week<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/02\/GettyImages-956963180-620x413.jpg?resize=620%2C413&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-74166\" title=\"\"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Would it surprise you to know that males account for over 20% of those with eating disorders? For bulimia, it goes up to 30%. That is what I dealt with for more than 20 years. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A male lawyer binging and purging? What do you say? Yep. That was me. It started my freshman year in college. I carried it through law school and right into the practice of law, not to mention alcohol and cocaine use disorder. Throw in major depression, and it\u2019s not <em>quite <\/em>the recipe for a fulfilling legal career.\u00a0When I first acknowledged the problem, the shame was all-encompassing. I thought I was the only guy in the world who had dealt with an eating disorder. In my mind, it was more acceptable to talk about being an alcoholic or sniffing my legal career away on blow. I also didn\u2019t know that there is a 50% co-occurrence between substance use and eating disorders.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I am approaching 19 years since I last stuck my finger down my throat.\u00a0It hasn\u2019t always been a smooth journey as I still deal with body image issues. Who doesn\u2019t, right?\u00a0Normative discontent is fine. Everyone looks in the mirror now and then and says, \u201cThat sucks.\u201d\u00a0 What I no longer do is engage in destructive behaviors like bulimia to deal with it. Recovery is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eating Disorder Awareness Week started on February 24. If you are a struggling teen, adult, or LGTBQ person, please reach out. Shame is normal. Resources are available.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationaleatingdisorders.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eatingdisorderhope.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eating Disorder Hope<\/a><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<p><strong><em>Brian Cuban is an attorney, author, and advocate for mental health awareness and recovery. He has spoken at law firms, conferences, nonprofit events, colleges, and universities across the United States and Canada. He also writes extensively on these subjects. His books, columns, and quotes have appeared on CNN.com, Foxnews.com, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and online and in print newspapers worldwide.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>He is also the author of the best-selling book \u201cThe Addicted Lawyer, Tales of The Bar, Booze Blow &amp; Redemption.\u201d His debut novel, \u201cThe Ambulance Chaser,\u201d was released as the #1-selling debut paperback thriller. His follow-up crime thriller, \u201cThe Body Brokers\u201d is now available wherever books are sold and at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.briancuban.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.briancuban.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Would it surprise you to know that males account for over 20% of those with eating disorders? For bulimia, it goes up to 30%. That is what I dealt with for more than 20 years. \u00a0 A male lawyer binging and purging? What do you say? Yep. That was me. It started my freshman year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":109305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/GettyImages-956963180-620x413-HGGeBs.jpeg?fit=620%2C413&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}