Brian Cuban - The Addicted Lawyer: Tales of the Bar, Booze, Blow, and Redemption

Whos to Blame?

THERE WAS A time I did blame my mother for my addiction issues. In fact, for a long time, I blamed her for everything wrong with me. When I finally realized that she was not the cause of my problems, and that she was repeating what was done to her, I understood. Then I was able to let go of my anger and forgive.

I forgave my mother, and I forgave the little boy Id been for the choices he made. I forgave the junior high and high school bullies who made fun of me and physically assaulted me because of my weight. None of those people caused my addiction. They all had problems of their own. Blaming them was one of the ways I avoided confronting my addiction problems, and forgiving themand forgiving myselfwas one of the first steps in my recovery. Today, my mom and I have a good relationship free of the anger of those early days.

I often get asked if I want to confront the junior high and high school bullies who taunted me over my weight and physically assaulted me. Its true that memories of some of those episodes often lingered into adulthood. My dreams often take me back to a pair of pants given to me by my brother Mark and how those pants would, in part, define a lifetime of self-doubt.

Spring 1975: Im alone in my bedroom watching Star Trek, thinking about the upcoming school dance, and idolizing Captain Kirk, the handsome, swashbuckling captain of the Starship Enterprise . The looks. The confidence. The women. If I can only be him. Ill bet he was the prom king in high school. I hate school dances. They remind me of what I will never be, and the things I will never see. I will never be invited to the prom. I will never be brave enough to ask a girl to the prom. I will never see a Brian in the mirror who, despite numerous crushes, is attractive and confident enough to even go on a date. I will never command the Starship Enterprise.

I play out fantasies in my head of life with each crush, envisioning an alternate reality of love and acceptance. I see it every day and want it badly. The soft hand touch of the first love. The excitement of the prom planning and talk of booze, hotels, and losing my virginity. I am lost in the fantasy of acceptance and being someone I am not

I am jarred out of my fantasy world by a knock at the door. My brother Mark is standing there holding pair of pants. Shiny. Gold. Bell-bottom. A creation of the new disco craze sweeping the country. Mark is all about the disco. I would hear him playing the hit song The Hustle on the record player in our living room. He is handsome. He is confident, with jet black hair from our mothers lineage. I have the red hair and freckles from our fathers. Mark has the genes of confidence, the charisma, and charm from my father. I am my mothers child.

Hey Bri! Check out these babies! What do you think?

Youre actually going to wear those?

I have been wearing them. Everyone at the disco loves them. I just bought a new pair. Do you want these?

Suddenly, I do not care what they look like. They are an offering from my brother, an offering of love, a piece of him that might rub off on me and transform me into a disco-dancing Captain Kirk. I am off my bed in seconds, reaching for the pants. He smiles and says, Have fun, disco boy!

I immediately shut my door, strip to my underwear, and slide each leg carefully into the pants so as not to wrinkle them. I stand up. My heart sinks. I can barely get the pants over my ass and up to my waist. I am fat. Mark is not fat. I start to cry, but I keep pulling. Inhale! Stretch! I get them fastened. Exhale. The waistline stretches. Im in. I can take only half-breaths. I dont give a shit. I am wearing these pants. They are a symbol of Marks love. They are my ticket to the prom. I will learn The Hustle.

I wore those pants to school. I wore them a lot. The kids made fun of their tight fit on my relatively large body. I was used to being fat shamed and bullied over my weight and never stood up for myself when it happened. As a self-defense mechanism, I laughed it off, playing the self-deprecated clown. One afternoon, while walking home with a group of kids, the taunts started again. Fat teasing then degenerated into violence as several of the kids began surrounding me and ripping at the pants. I felt like prey that had been caught by wild animals.

They tore the pants to shreds, jeering, and then they left me to make a walk of shame home in my Fruit of the Loom tighty-whities. As they walked away, one guy suggested that if I was going to go get new pants, I should pick up a bra (for my man boobs) as well. Did I think about that humiliating afternoon for years to come? Yes I did. The incident was so traumatic that I can go to that spot to this day and point out where it happened. Did wishing vengeance upon my tormentors make me feel better in any way? No it did not. Confronting them years later would have done nothing to heal the insecurities I was facing at the time.

Today, Im actually connected via social media with a couple of my teenage tormentors. Forgiveness aside, it makes no sense to me personally to confront bullies from a lifetime ago. Life is not a reality show. Id be confronting middle-aged men, not teens. I have no idea if they remember what happened, and frankly, I hope they dont. I want them to have happy lives and raise wonderful children. I can hope theyve taught them about bullying so those cycles arent repeated.

However, when were young, this sort of perspective on past wrongs can be elusive. Episodes with bullies and episodes with my mother would run through my mind often. Blaming others for my issues was a convenient way of justifying long-boiling anger over my childhood and the choices I made. That anger was often a trigger for depression, which was often a trigger for the use of alcohol and cocaine. I was already experiencing fragile mental health and shaky self-esteem long before I ever thought about becoming a law student and attorney. Struggles with mental health started with overwhelming desire for acceptance combined with a very negative self-image dating back to childhood. I wanted to change the reflection of the horrendous monster I saw every time I glimpsed my reflection. A monster born of body dysmorphic disorder.

My mental state as a teenager, in part, would probably be diagnosed today as clinical depression, although I was not diagnosed with it then. It was a different era, and my parents would never have thought to seek help for me. Depression and mental illness in general were not as widely discussed as they are today and not concepts your average baby boomer teen in suburban Pennsylvania wouldve been comfortable raising with parents, friends, or teachers. Depression was something that was supposed to be handled in private. In silence. In loneliness, so you didnt spread your sadness to others. That is how I experienced it for many decades. As something shameful. The shame was intensified as I watched my mother battle her own mental health issues alone. They were something to just get over.

Depression was still there when I walked through the doors of Pitt Law. It was with me when I studied. When I sat for bar exams. When I sought my first jobs, made my first friends in the city Id come to call home, and fell in love for the first time. It was there every time I walked into a courtroom or mediation or wrote a brief. The feeling of depression was as familiar as my own distorted reflection, and yet, for most of my life, not something for which I acknowledged needing help. Depression was my normal long before alcohol and drug addiction. Even at a young age, my feelings and behaviors became familiar. A deep, gut-wrenching loneliness. Feeling isolated, and crying in my bedroom. Apathy in my studies. Binge eating. Cutting school to drink and smoke weed. Convinced I would never be accepted by my peers.