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Transcript

00:00:00:23 – 00:00:31:07
Elliott Wald
Hello, I’m Elliott Wald, addiction specialist, and welcome to another episode of Coming Clean With Me. Today my guest is Brian Cuban. Brian is a former personal injury attorney, an author, a public speaker, a mental health and addiction recovery advocate. He’s an authority on mental eating disorders, including bulimia. By dysmorphic disorder, cocaine and alcohol addiction. Having first hand experience of being afflicted by these for decades until he began his journey of recovery and sobriety 2007.

00:00:31:12 – 00:00:34:02
Elliott Wald
Welcome, Brian, and thank you for joining me here today.

00:00:34:05 – 00:00:36:15
Brian Cuban
It’s a pleasure, Eliot. Thanks for having me on.

00:00:36:17 – 00:00:59:18
Elliott Wald
Fantastic. So being a lawyer, let’s just just jump straight in being a lawyer because, you know, I always say this to people, Brian, but it doesn’t discriminate cocaine. In other words, it doesn’t matter with you. You’re a warehouse worker, whether you’re a lawyer, a pediatrician, a surgeon, a judge. I’ve seen them all. There’s no discrepancy. Is that?

00:00:59:20 – 00:01:23:03
Brian Cuban
No, there is not. I mean, nostrils don’t discriminate either, right? The first line up the nostril or however you ingest is is the same. You know, no matter what what background you come from, no matter what your trauma is. But I also like to add that in terms of demographics, well, addiction does not discriminate. It does hit different demographics, you know, just disproportionately.

00:01:23:03 – 00:01:24:21
Brian Cuban
So we should be go back.

00:01:25:01 – 00:01:33:01
Elliott Wald
Yes, that’s true. But tell me about your own journey. How did your how did your journey to addiction begin?

00:01:33:03 – 00:01:41:20
Brian Cuban
Well, it began we have to go all the way back. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m a boomer born in 1961.

00:01:41:22 – 00:01:43:04
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:01:43:06 – 00:01:48:22
Brian Cuban
Baby boomer born in 1961. Yeah. If I use any English, you know, American.

00:01:49:00 – 00:01:53:13
Elliott Wald
Yeah. I love what I do. I will. I will go and go.

00:01:53:15 – 00:02:22:10
Brian Cuban
And I’m the middle of three boys. And this is all important because a lot of people in my anecdotal experience have used cocaine to high trauma, high childhood trauma, different types of trauma. And for me, that was the adverse childhood experiences were very important. So it’s important that your listeners know, you know, how that all began, right? What caused that need to change who I was and see a different person in the mirror with that first line of coke.

00:02:22:12 – 00:02:23:04
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:02:23:06 – 00:02:34:04
Brian Cuban
That took over my life. So I had out in the middle of three boys, I have an older brother, Mark, and your listeners may or may not know him up there, primarily in the UK. He owns We.

00:02:34:04 – 00:02:37:03
Elliott Wald
Have Ship, we have Shark Tank in the UK. So I know your brother.

00:02:37:03 – 00:02:46:06
Brian Cuban
Okay. Yeah, he, he, he’s on Shark Tank and he owns the NBA basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. And I have a younger brother, Jeff and Mark as the father.

00:02:46:08 – 00:02:47:15
Elliott Wald
What is Jeff to.

00:02:47:17 – 00:02:49:05
Brian Cuban
Jeff works for Mark.

00:02:49:06 – 00:02:50:01
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:02:50:03 – 00:02:53:14
Brian Cuban
So I’m not in the family business. Mark. Jeff is.

00:02:53:16 – 00:02:54:14
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:02:54:16 – 00:03:19:08
Brian Cuban
So Mark Mark is the firstborn was as you might he was outgoing, entrepreneurial, following this door to door, selling that door to door. I remember when our local newspapers went on strike, he back in the seventies, he and his buddies, barely old enough to drive, drove out to a state about 100 miles away and bought their newspapers and drove them back to our state and sold them.

00:03:19:10 – 00:03:22:01
Brian Cuban
So that’s the kind of guy he was. Right.

00:03:22:03 – 00:03:22:13
Elliott Wald
Got it.

00:03:22:13 – 00:03:50:22
Brian Cuban
He made money. Jeff was an athlete, outgoing, the beer parties, the dates, the prom, all of those things. Very popular. Very popular. I was classic middle child syndrome. I was shy, I was withdrawn. And I internalized anything negative said to me in about me and Ward as kind of who I was, like a skin tight suit. And unfortunately, I had a difficult relationship with my mom.

00:03:51:00 – 00:04:13:22
Brian Cuban
All your listeners a little bit about this, but I want to make it clear to everyone that I do not blame my mother for the things I went through. Parents do not cause addiction. Parents do not cause eating disorders. There is a difference between cause and correlation. And so but things that happened in the home and that can correlate with mental health issues later in life, it’ll happen to some.

00:04:13:22 – 00:04:31:23
Brian Cuban
It won’t happen to others. Right? You go through that same experience. That’s why it’s correlation and not cause there was a lot of fat shaming in my household. My mother used to. I used to come home from school when I was a heavy kid bordering on obese. There was a lot of fat. I used to come home from school.

00:04:32:00 – 00:04:52:08
Brian Cuban
I’d go into the cupboard and they have Chef Boyardee ravioli in the UK. I don’t have enough SpaghettiOs or Beef or Roni, you know, the canned food in Berlin. We didn’t have a microwave and my mom would come home from selling real estate and she would walk into the kitchen and say, Brian, you know, if you keep eating that way, you’re going to be a fat pig.

00:04:52:10 – 00:05:14:21
Brian Cuban
Now, this were the these were the things my great my grandmother said to my mom. These were the things I’m sure my great grandmother and, you know, in her own way said to my grandmother, I come from an Eastern European Jewish family from Lithuania. My mom’s what? We’re from Romania and Lithuania, and they were poor and there was a very dysfunctional relationship around the food.

00:05:14:23 – 00:05:44:04
Brian Cuban
So I had a very stereotypical Jewish grandmother eat, eat, eat. And, you know, everything revolved around food. And so if my mother had a very mentally and verbally abusive relationship with her mother, who was diagnosed schizophrenic and it was very ugly and these kind of things rolled downhill, especially in that time period where a woman couldn’t talk about her own mental health issues, of which my mother had a lot.

00:05:44:04 – 00:06:05:04
Brian Cuban
Right. It was very stigmatized for women. It is today still. But back then it was exponentially worse. It was just under the radar. But not understanding this and hearing these things from my mother, who was dealing with her own mental health battles. I grew depressed and I began to eat more ravioli and more and more and more and more spaghetti.

00:06:05:10 – 00:06:07:03
Brian Cuban
And I grew to be a bigger. Brian.

00:06:07:03 – 00:06:14:01
Elliott Wald
And you’re dealing with your emotions. You’re dealing with your emotions through internally by externally eating.

00:06:14:03 – 00:06:16:21
Brian Cuban
Correct? Correct. Which is not uncommon.

00:06:16:23 – 00:06:17:05
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:06:17:08 – 00:06:39:09
Brian Cuban
And and for kids or for adults. And so and as I got heavier and quote unquote, fat as I was, you know, as we hear and the the what happens when kids change for what other kids perceive in the negative as high school the bullying started. Right. You’re a fat pig. Well, you must have talked to my mom, Brian.

00:06:39:09 – 00:07:02:12
Brian Cuban
You need to go and get a brothel. Your man boobs and all of these things. And I internalized that as well because I didn’t want the kids to know how bad it hurt. You have to remember, this was before the Internet. Decades before the Internet, My visions of popularity weren’t to talk and Instagram and, you know, all the airbrushed images right before we put our pictures out there, we smooth our faces.

00:07:02:13 – 00:07:03:02
Elliott Wald
Yeah, My.

00:07:03:05 – 00:07:07:10
Brian Cuban
My, my images were the kids I saw every day.

00:07:07:12 – 00:07:08:18
Elliott Wald
Raw reality.

00:07:09:00 – 00:07:35:05
Brian Cuban
Yes. The kids who were going to the football games, the kids who had dates, the kids who were going to the prom, the kids who were walking down the high school between the the aisle, between the lockers, you know, the checkered old checkered floor holding hands, getting their first kiss, all the things that I wanted so badly but was too afraid to ask for because in my mind, I projected out what my mother said and what these bullies said.

00:07:35:07 – 00:07:43:15
Brian Cuban
You’re a fat pig. And this all culminated one day and what I call the Dave the gold pants. Do you remember the disco era?

00:07:43:17 – 00:07:45:02
Elliott Wald
Yes, I certainly do.

00:07:45:07 – 00:07:48:08
Brian Cuban
Yes. So there was a movie called Saturday Night Fever.

00:07:48:10 – 00:07:49:06
Elliott Wald
Sure. Back in.

00:07:49:06 – 00:07:50:04
Brian Cuban
1970s one.

00:07:50:09 – 00:07:51:00
Elliott Wald
Going to.

00:07:51:04 – 00:08:16:09
Brian Cuban
That’s right, 1976. And my brother Mark and I was a freshman in high school in my brother Mark taught disco that in downtown. And he always came home with the platform shoes and the flowered pants. Right. The bellbottoms, as we remember from that era with some of your millennials and Gen Z and younger probably won’t remember, but it was very popular.

00:08:16:11 – 00:08:37:08
Brian Cuban
And so Mark would came home and one day he came home and walked into my room and he had a pair of shiny gold satin bellbottom disco pants he was holding in his hand. And he said, Brian, these are for you. I’m getting new ones. And I was so excited. I was so happy. I love my brother dearly.

00:08:37:08 – 00:08:55:07
Brian Cuban
We’re very close today. All three of us. And he gave me these pants and I decided I was going to wear them to school. But Mark wasn’t a big guy. They fit him fine. I had to jump up and down. I had to spray the water bottle. My butt looked like 15 cats trying to get out, but I didn’t care.

00:08:55:09 – 00:09:15:00
Brian Cuban
I got into these pants. I wore them to school. My stomach coming out. And as you might expect, kids made fun of me. And but these were, again, in my mind, the popular kids, the kids, the kids who were making fun of me were the ones I wanted to be like. So I sort of hung around them and just self-deprecating, Yeah, I’m so fat.

00:09:15:00 – 00:09:40:18
Brian Cuban
I know. And I became the sad clown, self-deprecating clown. And I’m walking home from school with these kids one day, and it was about a mile walk from the school to my house. And it’s the sidewalk along a busy street with cars just whizzing by. And we’re walking down the sidewalk and I’m wearing my shiny gold bellbottom disco pants.

00:09:40:19 – 00:09:49:19
Brian Cuban
The kids are making fun of them. All of a sudden, one one pulls up the zipper and it rips a little bit right at the zipper.

00:09:50:00 – 00:09:50:19
Elliott Wald
Wow.

00:09:50:21 – 00:10:25:05
Brian Cuban
And another kid pulls along the seam in a rip some more, and then we hit the next thing I knew, it was like a pack of wild dogs on me. This group of kids physically assaulted me. They ripped off my pants that my brother had given me down to my underwear, and as we call them in the States, my tighty whities and they threw the shreds in the street and walked out high fiving like them, laughing like they had done the funniest thing ever.

00:10:25:06 – 00:10:26:05
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:10:26:07 – 00:10:51:11
Brian Cuban
I’m in my underwear in a t shirt and tennis shoes, and I saw white socks and I had to wait for class because it was a busy street. I go out in the street and I pick them up and I cover up my privates in my underwear, you know, just down my hands over my groin. And I waddle home, you know, cars just go in, people going, hey, you know, but no one stopped.

00:10:51:12 – 00:11:05:23
Brian Cuban
And I’ll tell you, the worst part of that walk of shame was the intersection with the stoplights, because I had to stop and wait for traffic so I could cross. And every stoplight felt like it was a year.

00:11:06:01 – 00:11:07:21
Elliott Wald
Forever.

00:11:07:23 – 00:11:22:17
Brian Cuban
With people looking. But no one bothered to ask me what was wrong or what had happened. I got home and the house was empty. It was funeral silent. Do they have basements in the UK? I walked out into my basement, go to.

00:11:22:19 – 00:11:23:10
Elliott Wald
The.

00:11:23:12 – 00:11:56:19
Brian Cuban
Underground and as I walked down these wooden stairs, there was these blue painted wooden stairs. They quit. And I remembers. I went down these stairs because it was an older house. Every creak of those wood, every creak of that wood. I felt like it was ripples on the water reverberating, reverberating out to my mother, who was selling real estate, saying, I told you so reverberated reverberating to my father, who fixed cars a mile away, that you can’t stand up for yourself, reverberating out to my brothers, who would say the same thing.

00:11:56:19 – 00:12:16:00
Brian Cuban
And of course, none of them would have said that they would have all been angry. Angry, not at me, at the kids who had done it, but in my mind, the mind of a, you know, a high school freshman. That’s what they were going to say to me. And I deserved it for not standing up to them for allowing this to happen.

00:12:16:02 – 00:12:38:14
Brian Cuban
So I took those shreds and I found the garbage can and I buried that, buried those shreds under newspapers and garbage, hoping that I would bury my shame and bury my trauma. But that’s not how it works. Trauma threads, trauma remembers, and it has a way of coming out in our adult life when we least expect it, if not dealt with.

00:12:38:16 – 00:12:39:05
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:12:39:07 – 00:13:21:15
Brian Cuban
There was that moment when we talk about snapshots in our lives, Eliot, that, you know, played a role going down in mental health dysfunction. It was that moment where I remember as a young man, a young boy teenager, looking in the mirror for the first time, whether it was a mirror or whether it was a car reflection, whether it was a mall window and food, an ugly, fat pig monster who was never going to be loved by his mother, who loved me dearly, love me dearly, but just dealing with our own crap, who was never going to get married, never going to get his first kiss, never going to never be deserving of anything good

00:13:21:15 – 00:13:28:22
Brian Cuban
in his life. A tough mindset when you’re 15 years old to develop that mindset already at such.

00:13:28:22 – 00:13:30:09
Elliott Wald
A young age.

00:13:30:11 – 00:13:35:20
Brian Cuban
And that start, that was the beginning. You want to talk about the beginning? That was, yeah.

00:13:35:22 – 00:13:55:07
Elliott Wald
Okay. And then that trauma, which was which was there inside of you, of all these years of this, this self-loathing and self-hate to want of a better word, at what point did you find that escape of drinking alcohol and using cocaine? How old was it.

00:13:55:09 – 00:14:02:19
Brian Cuban
That the alcohol began? When I was a freshman in college, I went to a college here in Pennsylvania called Penn State University.

00:14:02:21 – 00:14:03:21
Elliott Wald
How old is that?

00:14:03:23 – 00:14:05:07
Brian Cuban
That was that 18.

00:14:05:09 – 00:14:06:16
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:14:06:18 – 00:14:28:16
Brian Cuban
I drank as a high school. I drank in high school, but it really didn’t accelerate until I was in college and the drinking age was 21. But I you know, you find ways to drink. And I had also developed the eating disorder. I developed Bohemia and I drank, too, So I didn’t have to feel so I didn’t have to remember the trauma escape.

00:14:28:18 – 00:14:51:00
Brian Cuban
I drank to escape. And I went on to law school and I continued to drink, drink to escape. And as you might imagine, it’s very difficult to be a good student. And I wasn’t because I was drinking all the time rather than studying. And then I finished law school, but I was able to make it to law school not as a, you know, just barely.

00:14:51:02 – 00:14:58:06
Brian Cuban
And I moved from one state to another from Pennsylvania to Texas, which it’s about a 1200 mile journey.

00:14:58:08 – 00:15:00:07
Elliott Wald
Is that where your family lived? Texas?

00:15:00:09 – 00:15:03:19
Brian Cuban
No, my family lived in Pittsburgh, but in Pennsylvania. But at that.

00:15:03:19 – 00:15:05:22
Elliott Wald
Your brother lives in Texas now? Right?

00:15:06:00 – 00:15:23:18
Brian Cuban
When I graduated law school in Pennsylvania, both my brothers had already moved to Texas. I started Dallas, Texas. Got it. So I took a bus to Dallas, Texas, because I felt I would could be with the people who didn’t judge me. The the only people in my life who I knew love me safe.

00:15:23:18 – 00:15:24:07
Elliott Wald
One place.

00:15:24:12 – 00:15:49:21
Brian Cuban
A safe place. I could be in a safe place. And it was but it was like throwing gasoline on a fire because they didn’t know what I was going through. Very young. This was the mid eighties. They’re out drinking. They weren’t doing drugs to my north, but, you know, we’d go out and I drank even more and more and then in 1987, in a bathroom of a nightclub, I did my first line of cocaine.

00:15:49:23 – 00:15:52:05
Elliott Wald
In 1987. You were how old?

00:15:52:07 – 00:15:56:01
Brian Cuban
I was 20 more to 20. 26.

00:15:56:03 – 00:15:57:17
Elliott Wald
Okay. I got at 26.

00:15:57:19 – 00:16:19:02
Brian Cuban
I was 26 and I did my first line of cocaine. Another buddy who I was out partying with said, I have you know, you want to try this? He was big into it. He was a big sniffer. And he said, You want to try this? And I’ll make you feel good. You know, you won’t believe it. And he found his dealer was in the club, so his dealer gave me a free sample.

00:16:19:04 – 00:16:21:00
Elliott Wald

00:16:21:02 – 00:16:32:12
Brian Cuban
So we go down to the bathroom and it’s the whole game. You go down to the bathroom, you know, closed. You know, just go in the go in the stall. And I bent over that stall, put it on this, you know, put dumped it out.

00:16:32:12 – 00:16:33:13
Elliott Wald
On the cistern.

00:16:33:15 – 00:16:44:03
Brian Cuban
On on the toilet. And it’s kind of funny. Aren’t cocaine users an ironic bunch? Especially, especially with the, you know, going in and out of a pandemic, you’ll wash your hands.

00:16:44:03 – 00:16:46:14
Elliott Wald
You got to see where you were going.

00:16:46:14 – 00:16:50:22
Brian Cuban
With the world bent over a toilet that.

00:16:51:00 – 00:16:52:02
Elliott Wald
You had.

00:16:52:04 – 00:16:59:18
Brian Cuban
Bent over a toilet that’s has God knows what on it and stick a dollar bill up or nose that’s been used by, you know, who knows who.

00:16:59:20 – 00:17:02:00
Elliott Wald
Passed it on to other people?

00:17:02:06 – 00:17:13:12
Brian Cuban
That’s right. That’s right. Go figure. Right. Go. Go figure. Well, wash our hands, but we’ll do that. Yeah. And in that, that’s addiction. But.

00:17:13:14 – 00:17:18:10
Elliott Wald
And from that one time, Brian, how long before it escalated.

00:17:18:12 – 00:17:43:22
Brian Cuban
The the mental aspect was instantaneous. I walked out of that bathroom and looked in the mirror, and for the first time in my 26 years, the first time didn’t hate myself. I, I the person I saw in that mirror, that person was cool. That person was worthy of dating. I was going to go upstairs where all the women were hanging out and I was cool.

00:17:43:22 – 00:17:48:03
Brian Cuban
Brian Right. And I was ready.

00:17:48:05 – 00:17:49:01
Elliott Wald
Yeah. And.

00:17:49:03 – 00:18:03:20
Brian Cuban
But then it wore off and then I was shy. Brian Then I was ashamed. Brian And then I felt like crap, you know, because it wore off and I was starting to feel kind of jerky and, and so where’s the dealer? Where’s I got to feel I got to love myself again?

00:18:04:01 – 00:18:05:15
Elliott Wald
You got to repeat the process.

00:18:05:15 – 00:18:19:06
Brian Cuban
I thought I found the dealer. I gave them my last $100. He gave me a gram what it cost back then and went back to that bathroom and love Brian again and again and again and again. Cocaine took over my life.

00:18:19:06 – 00:18:21:06
Elliott Wald
That’s what happens.

00:18:21:07 – 00:18:36:22
Brian Cuban
And then I would eventually. And then I would if I became psychologically and I would eventually become physically dependent on it as well. And then, you know, move into addiction where I was willing to do anything I had to to, you know, whether it was, you know, any illegal means to get the drug.

00:18:37:00 – 00:18:43:18
Elliott Wald
To get over what period of time did you have that cocaine addiction? How long did that last for in your life?

00:18:43:19 – 00:18:48:18
Brian Cuban
That lasted until really 12 and seven.

00:18:48:20 – 00:18:54:08
Elliott Wald
So from the age of 26 to to 40.

00:18:54:10 – 00:18:57:22
Brian Cuban
40, really 47, 46 and 47.

00:18:58:00 – 00:19:07:10
Elliott Wald
To start the 20, 20, 21 years. 21 years roughly, Yeah. Yeah. At your height, how frequently were you using.

00:19:07:12 – 00:19:14:17
Brian Cuban
At my height I was, I might go through three eight balls a week.

00:19:14:18 – 00:19:15:23
Elliott Wald
Wow.

00:19:16:01 – 00:19:17:19
Brian Cuban
You know, what did I drink? Yeah, Yeah.

00:19:17:21 – 00:19:18:06
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:19:18:07 – 00:19:31:15
Brian Cuban
Yeah, But, you know, so it wasn’t a matter of. Was I thinking every day it was a matter. I’d get it and I’d do it, I, I’d have nothing left. So I wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like. Can I say that I did it every single day? No, but I could say when it was empty, I’d get some more.

00:19:31:15 – 00:19:34:21
Brian Cuban
And when I could get a hold of my dealer, I’d do it and go through it. Right.

00:19:34:23 – 00:19:42:02
Elliott Wald
But you. You had a very all or nothing mentality. In other words, however much you had. I wasn’t used to this job.

00:19:42:04 – 00:19:49:20
Brian Cuban
Exactly. Exactly. Let me give you a great example of how the insanity was. Are you familiar with the NBA?

00:19:49:22 – 00:19:54:10
Elliott Wald
Yes, I know. Basketball. Yeah, I don’t know. But I don’t know about players. But I know what it is. Okay.

00:19:54:10 – 00:20:16:09
Brian Cuban
So my brother Moore bought the Dallas Mavericks. That’s, you know, our Dallas, Texas team in 2002 thousand. The year 2000, Right. In the year 2006, we went to our championship for the very first time. Right? We were going to get the trophy. We were going for the big trophy. And so Mark also owned a piece of the arena.

00:20:16:09 – 00:20:21:12
Brian Cuban
We played it. And so as you might imagine, I get good seats for those games, right? My brother on.

00:20:21:12 – 00:20:23:06
Elliott Wald
The court Well, I don’t know.

00:20:23:08 – 00:20:39:16
Brian Cuban
I called him up. I got a couple of really good seats and I was good and I told them I need two more to give to friends. I didn’t give them to my friends. I didn’t sell them on eBay. I sold them. I traded them to my cocaine dealer for over $2,000 in cocaine.

00:20:39:18 – 00:20:41:13
Elliott Wald
Did your brother notice after.

00:20:41:15 – 00:20:45:17
Brian Cuban
Not for ten years, when I finally fessed up and that ran a big story about in a paper.

00:20:45:19 – 00:20:46:14
Elliott Wald
Okay.

00:20:46:16 – 00:21:03:20
Brian Cuban
So my dealer shows up at my house and he gives me the tickets. I give them I give him the tickets, and he gives me this giant baggie of raw cocaine. And I go upstairs and I’m smashing the guy, Right? You know, And I get this spaghetti greater show.

00:21:03:22 – 00:21:04:19
Elliott Wald
The ritual.

00:21:04:20 – 00:21:13:02
Brian Cuban
The ritual. That’s right. I mean, how many spaghetti grater, how many graders got strainers did I go through in my life? I don’t know. you know.

00:21:13:04 – 00:21:18:12
Elliott Wald
We have cheese traders in the UK, like, make English tea. Yeah, and that’s what we use. Yeah.

00:21:18:15 – 00:21:48:00
Brian Cuban
Push it in there and use the spoon and it comes out as a powder. I don’t know how many of them I went through for that purpose and so I get it all powdered out and I did a couple of lines and then I got all panicky. At this point, I’m really maybe there was some amphetamines in there mixed with some different things, but I got all panicky and I got all paranoid and all of a sudden I kept it got in my head that the cops were coming and I was going to be go to prison.

00:21:48:02 – 00:21:49:01
Brian Cuban
This whole mentality.

00:21:49:01 – 00:21:50:19
Elliott Wald
So paranoia.

00:21:50:21 – 00:22:13:03
Brian Cuban
yes, yes. And and and again, there could have been other stuff, an extend that caused a lot of this reaction. But so I hid the cocaine. Then I drove to a hardware store where I bought these electrical faceplate outlets. You know, you plug in and I bought drawing a saw and I went back home and I created these fake electrical outlets in the drywall.

00:22:13:06 – 00:22:24:00
Elliott Wald
One second. Where were you on it when you were doing this? Yes. So you were off your tips, as we said. You absolutely to do this because you got paranoia that you think something’s going to happen.

00:22:24:06 – 00:22:25:07
Brian Cuban
Absolutely.

00:22:25:09 – 00:22:26:14
Elliott Wald
So.

00:22:26:16 – 00:22:48:03
Brian Cuban
So I’m cutting out these electrical outlets in the drywall of my of the different bedrooms in my house. And I put the cocaine in these small, smaller Ziploc baggies and I slop up behind the drywall and I, you know, I drew up the face plate thinking of the smartest lawyer ever, like the cops have never thought of that one before.

00:22:48:05 – 00:22:51:12
Brian Cuban
No. Know the drug dogs, right. They don’t know that one.

00:22:51:14 – 00:22:51:21
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:22:51:21 – 00:23:11:20
Brian Cuban
And I’m like, okay, I’m safe now. So I line out a couple more lines and and that again. So the paranoia was just overwhelming. It was about 2 hours later I went back to those same electrical outlets, took the cocaine out of such the down the toilet.

00:23:11:22 – 00:23:27:08
Elliott Wald
It was from. Yeah. I think you know when you use long term, the paranoia just becomes just becomes after like three or four lines of paranoia is that, you know, you just cannot CCTV camera. You think you’re someone’s going to come to your house. It’s crazy right?

00:23:27:09 – 00:23:34:09
Brian Cuban
Absolutely. And I was also, you know, and you but you remember that great high from the first time, right?

00:23:34:11 – 00:23:36:07
Elliott Wald
So is a great high.

00:23:36:08 – 00:23:47:06
Brian Cuban
So it’s not the it’s not long term. I just need a different dealer. I’m just keep you keep searching for that car Right. That that’s yeah. Again that that feeling that’s never going to come again.

00:23:47:06 – 00:23:52:16
Elliott Wald
You’re never going to get what you had for the first 12 months of using. That’s right. That’s gone.

00:23:52:22 – 00:24:02:20
Brian Cuban
Gone, gone. But you keep searching. Well, maybe I need to change. Maybe I need to drink a different alcohol with that. Maybe I need to do this. Maybe I need to do that. But it never works.

00:24:03:00 – 00:24:14:08
Elliott Wald
You know, you’re right. You’re always looking. I’ll use less. I’ll use it longer periods between doing lines. I’ll watch this first. I’ll do this differently. You always try to rationalize. Always.

00:24:14:12 – 00:24:38:10
Brian Cuban
Absolutely. Absolutely. You’re trying to be like this evil chemist, right? This evil chemist trying to figure it all out when it’s just your brain’s been drastically rewire. So the next morning comes, I wake up and I’m thinking, shit, I just. I flushed all the coke, cocaine down the toilet. What idiot does that? And so there was another game that night.

00:24:38:10 – 00:24:53:13
Brian Cuban
So I called my brother again. I got two more tickets. I called my drug dealer again. He shows up at my house. He said, Dude, you did all that last night. I didn’t want to tell him. I flushed it down the toilet like an idiot. So I said, Yes, I did it all, which was really no big deal for me to do that.

00:24:53:15 – 00:25:00:10
Brian Cuban
And that’s cocaine, you know, There was no such thing for me as lasting through the week, right? You said it was all or nothing.

00:25:00:12 – 00:25:01:11
Elliott Wald
All or nothing.

00:25:01:11 – 00:25:06:02
Brian Cuban
All or nothing. But in my mind when I got it, you say it’s going to last through the week, right?

00:25:06:04 – 00:25:13:20
Elliott Wald
I’m going to buy a larger quantity to save myself money or sustain me drive for the dealer back. But no matter how much you go, it’s gone.

00:25:13:22 – 00:25:17:00
Brian Cuban
It’s gone. It’s gone. Whether it’s a day or a day and a half, it’s gone.

00:25:17:02 – 00:25:17:20
Elliott Wald
Exactly. You know.

00:25:17:21 – 00:25:36:06
Brian Cuban
You’re up for two days straight. It’s going. So you give. I give him, I give him. He gives me the cocaine and I give him the tickets. Again, it was rinse, wash, repeat. I run up to my I had a home office and dump it out on the desk. Why not a couple more lines, hide it again behind those same electrical outlets.

00:25:36:07 – 00:25:55:16
Brian Cuban
And then later that night, you know, I’m still I get all paranoid again. And for the second night in a row, the second night in a row, I went to that same toilet, dropped to my knees and flushed it again. They talk about the insanity of addiction, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

00:25:55:18 – 00:25:56:16
Elliott Wald
Yes.

00:25:56:18 – 00:26:00:03
Brian Cuban
It’s not insane. It’s a biological process that.

00:26:00:05 – 00:26:17:22
Elliott Wald
But there’s an insanity to the to the actual belief that it’s going to get different, even that they’re doing three lines, you the paranoia and then you promise yourself on the comedown, you’re never going to do it again. And then 24 hours, 40 hours later, you’re repeating the process.

00:26:17:22 – 00:26:27:00
Brian Cuban
Absolutely. As soon as as soon as that feeling gets in the rearview mirror, you know, you’re making that call again. And, you know, back in my day, it was only calls or no texts or anything.

00:26:27:02 – 00:26:28:15
Elliott Wald
Yeah, but.

00:26:28:17 – 00:26:53:12
Brian Cuban
And so that kind of epitomized how cocaine took over my life and what it did to me. And that if we if in the summer of 2005, if we want to back up a little bit, I became so despondent that this would never or that my life would never be different, that I would never love myself without the aid of being able to do this.

00:26:53:13 – 00:27:21:19
Brian Cuban
But I decided to end my life by suicide. And I sent a very disturbing mass email to a friend who called my brothers. And before I knew it, my younger brother was in my house. Mark was in Los Angeles, so he flew in back to Dallas and my brother walked in. There was a 45 automatic on my nightstand that was cocaine everywhere and Xanax, 2 hours, cocaine through the night and Xanax thing.

00:27:21:19 – 00:27:25:06
Elliott Wald
And you try to level off, to calm down, to go back up.

00:27:25:08 – 00:27:29:13
Brian Cuban
That’s right. Which makes it a problem to practice law, right? Yeah.

00:27:29:15 – 00:27:30:20
Elliott Wald
I mean, you think straight.

00:27:31:01 – 00:27:41:22
Brian Cuban
You can’t. I’ve I’ve shown up at the courthouse under the influence. I’ve done cocaine in the courthouse bathrooms. You know, it did. It didn’t matter.

00:27:42:00 – 00:28:02:11
Elliott Wald
Yeah. And you always I’ve I’ve got a client I helped about three years ago and he’s a judge at the Old Bailey, which in the UK is probably like the biggest courthouse like the biggest courthouse, like the most serious problems. And he used to say to me he would go back to his room, do a line, come out before he sentence people.

00:28:02:13 – 00:28:04:15
Elliott Wald
Absolutely. It was just pervasive.

00:28:04:19 – 00:28:13:03
Brian Cuban
I’ve been I mean, I’ve been under the influence of cocaine in front of judges and a barrister. I call them barristers and solicitors there right?

00:28:13:05 – 00:28:14:16
Elliott Wald
Yes, we do. Yeah. Yes.

00:28:14:16 – 00:28:27:09
Brian Cuban
But it and people ask me when I tell my story, you know, that was wrong. Did you know you can go to jail? And I said yes. I wasn’t an idiot. I was addicted. I mean, you’re an idiot.

00:28:27:11 – 00:28:33:13
Elliott Wald
No, addiction means you. You can see the problem, but unfortunately, you can’t change.

00:28:33:15 – 00:28:56:10
Brian Cuban
That’s right. That’s right. And so my brothers took me to a psychiatric hospital, my first of two trips to a psychiatric hospital. And I was I was angry, I was combative. And in our state and where I live in order to be committed to a psychiatric hospital, the doctor has to believe you are a danger to yourself or other drugs.

00:28:56:12 – 00:28:56:20
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:28:57:00 – 00:29:14:07
Brian Cuban
So I was sort of getting the gist that they were trying to commit me, so I knew what to say much to their chagrin, so they were unable to commit me. So they drove me back to my house and they took my car keys and they said, Just stay here and sober up and everything’s going to be okay.

00:29:14:09 – 00:29:24:18
Brian Cuban
My family didn’t know any different, right? They didn’t understand addiction. And you know what? My thought to that was Elliot, no problem. My drug dealer delivers.

00:29:24:20 – 00:29:26:18
Elliott Wald
Right? Yeah, I.

00:29:26:18 – 00:29:51:22
Brian Cuban
Have home delivery. This is no problem whatsoever. And that’s the way it was. And my solution wasn’t to go to treatment rehab or go to 12 step. My solution was to distance from my family. So I would no longer see my brother as my father. I would no longer see my nieces and nephews. I would not let them see that I was wound up all the time under the influence.

00:29:52:04 – 00:29:53:21
Brian Cuban
That was my solution.

00:29:53:23 – 00:30:00:17
Elliott Wald
I think. I think that’s common because it’s a narrowing of your life that that’s become you and your usage. Right.

00:30:00:17 – 00:30:07:05
Brian Cuban
Right. And I was going to hang out only with the people who didn’t judge me, at least until the cocaine is gone.

00:30:07:06 – 00:30:07:12
Elliott Wald
Right.

00:30:07:12 – 00:30:32:14
Brian Cuban
That’s until they want more. Because I was always buying and then that’s what I did. And so my career as a lawyer imploded. I was literally, if not for my brother and not for the privilege that I enjoy. And that’s important to acknowledge to to your to you, to your listeners that I’ve enjoyed a lot of privilege in my life in both addiction.

00:30:32:16 – 00:30:45:12
Brian Cuban
Addiction doesn’t discriminate, but I know I had a billionaire and have a billionaire brother who didn’t want to see me living under a bridge and didn’t want to see me in my life by suicide. And people don’t. That is this many people who have that privilege.

00:30:45:14 – 00:30:46:04
Elliott Wald
Sure.

00:30:46:09 – 00:30:49:21
Brian Cuban
So it would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that.

00:30:49:23 – 00:30:55:13
Elliott Wald
But you’re also extremely close to your brother’s marriage. Said, Congratulations, Mark.

00:30:55:13 – 00:30:59:17
Brian Cuban
Real close walking distance to each other here. That’s not an.

00:30:59:17 – 00:31:03:02
Elliott Wald
Act. It’s not a no, of course. Yeah.

00:31:03:07 – 00:31:05:05
Brian Cuban
So and so.

00:31:05:07 – 00:31:20:04
Elliott Wald
So you’re distancing yourself from everybody around you. You’re using on your own or with people who you’re trying to use with you, your mosque in the problem, not having to come to terms with it. That’s right. And I still have actually walked.

00:31:20:06 – 00:31:29:09
Brian Cuban
In 2006, I met a girl we started dating and I was able to, for a time successfully hide my problem from her.

00:31:29:11 – 00:31:32:04
Elliott Wald
And we were secret. Use it to her.

00:31:32:06 – 00:31:50:17
Brian Cuban
Yes. And we moved in together. And I remember when we moved in together, a buddy of mine said, she doesn’t do what you do. How? And you do what you do. How’s that going to work? And and I said to him, I want to stop. I need to stop. So I’m starting to think about it right. The fast pace of change, I’m starting to think about it.

00:31:50:19 – 00:32:05:17
Elliott Wald
But interesting, Brian, just to just interrupt you. Interesting. You’re starting to think about it because the things that you didn’t believe possibly you could have in your life. I see someone wanting me, loving me, caring for me, finding me attracted a suddenly manifested itself.

00:32:05:19 – 00:32:22:17
Brian Cuban
Well, yeah, Again, right. Because had already been divorced three times and none of those marriages lasted for more than two years. And they all failed because my drug and alcohol use. Okay, So but this was going to be different, right? We tell her, this one’s going to be different. I’m going to stop. And so.

00:32:22:19 – 00:32:23:16
Elliott Wald
We.

00:32:23:18 – 00:32:26:17
Brian Cuban
But I didn’t. Addiction doesn’t work that way either.

00:32:26:19 – 00:32:27:13
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:32:27:15 – 00:32:39:17
Brian Cuban
We moved in together and I know she started to suspect stuff and she went away for the weekend and it was Easter weekend, 2007. She’s going away for the weekend to visit her parents. I think.

00:32:39:19 – 00:32:43:13
Elliott Wald
That’s coming. Opportunity knocks, Opportunity knocks.

00:32:43:19 – 00:32:55:11
Brian Cuban
I’m going to go out with a buddy of mine. It was a bachelor party. I’m going to go out with a buddy of mine and I’m going to party. And by the time she gets home on Sunday, this is five. By the time she gets home on Sunday, I’ll be showered. Everything’s going to be good.

00:32:55:12 – 00:32:57:06
Elliott Wald
She’ll be none the wiser.

00:32:57:08 – 00:33:24:10
Brian Cuban
Well, what happened was I blacked out. I had a two day blackout in bed, and I. She comes home the night. It is Sunday evening. I’m in bed. I open my eyes. There’s cocaine everywhere. There’s alcohol, all that. She’s looking down on me. She’s a lawyer as well. I mean, she’s not smart. And I’m looking around figuring out how I can explain this orgy of evidence that I did.

00:33:24:10 – 00:33:42:21
Brian Cuban
I might not be the person I represented myself to be. And she’s looking around, wondering, probably if she walked in the right house. And all I could think of was kind of a running home to mom. I told her to take me back to this safe psychiatric facility. I’d been to a 2005. She didn’t know about that either.

00:33:42:23 – 00:34:01:10
Brian Cuban
And so but my thought process was, by the time we get down there, I’ll have a better life. And we get down there and we’re staying. Now I’m standing in the parking lot for the second time in my life of this parking lot of the psychiatric hospital. She’s crying and I’m thinking she’s going to leave me. Okay. She stood by me.

00:34:01:12 – 00:34:13:21
Brian Cuban
We dated for over a decade while I rebuilt the broken truck. She moved out, but we stayed. I rebuilt the broken trust and found recovery. And now we’ve been together over 18 years.

00:34:13:23 – 00:34:15:06
Elliott Wald
So magic, not.

00:34:15:06 – 00:34:35:13
Brian Cuban
Not all relationships will work out that way, but are able to because, you know, she’s a saint. And plus I had to do the work for me, right? Not for her, not for my pets, not for my parents. Because trauma and grief and all these things happen, you know, in recovery. And they can’t be a trigger for relapse.

00:34:35:15 – 00:34:45:14
Brian Cuban
And so but this wasn’t there. So we’re down there and I decided it was time apart. And what I do is I realize there wouldn’t be a third trip back. I’d be dead.

00:34:45:16 – 00:34:45:22
Elliott Wald
For.

00:34:46:00 – 00:35:06:00
Brian Cuban
That psychiatric hospital. So the next day, April 8th, I walked into my psychiatrist office. I was seeing I was seeing a counselor who I’d been lying to, Lying to, lying to. And, well, people. Why would you lie to your counselor? Well, I was a shame. Shame? There’s no hourly rate, right? It didn’t matter, you know.

00:35:06:02 – 00:35:31:00
Elliott Wald
You know, Brian, I think I think there’s a thing about other people who who’ve got an addiction that. That we lie. We lie. Because we even when we use them, right. We lie about the frequency, the quantity we like to our friends, We lie to other users. We just lie to ourselves because we are in denial. Until you reach that point where something happens in your life, thank God and you wake up, which is what you’re saying.

00:35:31:01 – 00:35:55:00
Brian Cuban
Yes. Yes. And I have many friends who you hope people reach that point before they die. And I have many friends who are below ground because you know that they never did. They never had that realization or they weren’t able to act on it when they had backslid into, you know, the behaviors. But fortunately for me, for whatever reason.

00:35:55:02 – 00:36:02:06
Brian Cuban
So my my counselor tried to get me into treatment. Right. Or the U.S. version we have you may call it that there.

00:36:02:08 – 00:36:04:04
Elliott Wald
Yeah, we call it the same thing.

00:36:04:06 – 00:36:21:05
Brian Cuban
So but I refused to go because my ego was still up here. I was this lawyer who had no clients at this point, my brother supporting me because and that’s privilege again. And so he said, Would you consider going to 12 step and 12 step? I’m sure that you have the same there.

00:36:21:09 – 00:36:22:23
Elliott Wald
We have that right? Yeah.

00:36:23:00 – 00:36:26:21
Brian Cuban
I don’t know if it’s as popular because you have the public out there. Right?

00:36:27:03 – 00:36:50:14
Elliott Wald
So, so, so so in the UK we have public health, but public health does have no facility to deal with addictions. That’s all we have. I see other meetings that you can go to the free drop in and I think for some people it’s great. You know, I’m a great advocate of I think some things work with some people, some things aren’t right for other people.

00:36:50:16 – 00:36:56:01
Elliott Wald
But I think that you’ve got to go for some support and and some sort of follow up. And I think you have to try different things.

00:36:56:02 – 00:37:03:13
Brian Cuban
I’m a if you look if you’ve looked at what I what things I say, I’m a massive advocate of multiple pathways to recovery.

00:37:03:15 – 00:37:04:14
Elliott Wald
Yeah I’ve read that.

00:37:04:20 – 00:37:16:17
Brian Cuban
But but at the time this was a different time. I was only given two options because my counselor only knew things. You were either in rehab. Are you worried aa or nay? We call it an idea for number one.

00:37:16:18 – 00:37:18:06
Elliott Wald
Yeah, we have that, but we have both.

00:37:18:08 – 00:37:49:20
Brian Cuban
Yeah. So? So those were the only two options I’m given. Well And I said, well, I’ll go, I’ll go to AA because alcohol was also a problem. And so because if I go to AA, I can stay around and you know, and I, and I had this fear of just leaving right, leaving my comfort zone. So I walked into the rooms of AA April 8th, 2007, and I sat down with my thought process when I sat down and I was crying and I smelled and, you know, I sat in the corner and I’m hovering right.

00:37:49:22 – 00:38:19:03
Brian Cuban
And listening to people tell, their stories. And my thought process wasn’t that I was an addict or alcoholic. My thought process was that if sitting in this chair will give me the tools that for the first time in my life now the first time in my 40 plus years will allow me to wake up in the morning, walk to the bathroom mirror naked and look at myself and love myself for the first time in my life without cocaine or alcohol.

00:38:19:03 – 00:38:45:12
Brian Cuban
I’ll sit. That was my thought process. I just wanted to love myself. I wanted so badly. Yeah, cause it was the need. Because it was the inability to love myself over four decades that kept me. They kept me going. Right. This next slide is going to be the one, even though I’ve been. I was also arrested for driving under the influence, even though I’ve three failed marriages, arrested two trips to a psychiatric facility.

00:38:45:15 – 00:39:10:22
Brian Cuban
And so this next line is going to allow me to love myself. You know, despite all that, the next next slide, if sitting in this chair will allow me to do that without the lines, without the drink, I’ll sit. And I did. And I sat and I sat and I’m still in counseling today. And I also take antidepressants because I suffer from depression separate from the addiction.

00:39:10:22 – 00:39:23:22
Brian Cuban
They are often intertwined, but separately. And in April, I’ll have 18 years in long term recovery. I’m sorry, 17. I’m getting old. I can’t remember.

00:39:24:00 – 00:39:45:22
Elliott Wald
Congratulations. That’s a massive accomplishment. I just want to ask you a couple of questions because because I did a lot I do a lot of research on all my guests before I interviewed my guests. And I’ve written a lot of things and listened to a few things. And you really emphasize the importance of support and recovery and you and your family, your brothers, particularly, they played an active role.

00:39:46:00 – 00:39:47:01
Elliott Wald
You would tell me about that.

00:39:47:01 – 00:40:03:18
Brian Cuban
Yes, we’re very close. You are. And it is generational. My father was the middle three boys like me. He had a very close relationship with his two brothers. I mean, this was the greatest generation. My father fought in World War Two in the Pacific. You know, as my as did his.

00:40:03:23 – 00:40:05:01
Elliott Wald
His or his.

00:40:05:01 – 00:40:25:06
Brian Cuban
Older brother. And they were very close. And he used to say to Mark, Jeff and I growing up, he’d say, Guys, no matter what happens in your life, you know, you have to stick together no matter what quibbles you have, no matter what BS, you have to stick together. You call your brother, tell your brother you love him.

00:40:25:08 – 00:40:46:07
Brian Cuban
You know, make sure your brother is okay, because this is what his father this is what he learned about his relationship with his two brothers. Even though it’s not always sunshine, right? You fight with your brothers. He and his mother were. They work together in a car shop fixing cars. They you know, they had their beefs and but it was that gift that brought us cold.

00:40:46:09 – 00:41:11:05
Brian Cuban
The cars kept my brothers and I so close the gift of family. That is a privilege. It is a privilege because a lot of people going to addiction, they come from a strange families don’t speak with their siblings or their parents or their children spouses. You know, there’s there could be incarceration involved. You have broken families. And so to have this is absolutely a privilege.

00:41:11:05 – 00:41:18:01
Brian Cuban
And I acknowledge and that is why I said it’s no accident that we live walking distance to each other today.

00:41:18:03 – 00:41:35:05
Elliott Wald
Yeah. Interesting. In the first book you wrote was in 2007. See, the addicted lawyer tells of the bar, booze, blow and redemption. I wonder, did you find it cathartic writing about character that really mirrored your own destructive use of cocaine and alcohol within the legal profession?

00:41:35:07 – 00:41:38:03
Brian Cuban
Well, now that that that that The Addictive Way was a memoir.

00:41:38:09 – 00:41:39:13
Elliott Wald
That was me.

00:41:39:15 – 00:41:43:02
Brian Cuban
An ambulance chaser was a care was not was not.

00:41:43:04 – 00:41:46:07
Elliott Wald
Going to go the ambulance chase you write 2021 right.

00:41:46:09 – 00:41:58:09
Brian Cuban
Yes. But now that was a that was a novel one that kind of mirrored my life. It was it gave me an insight that allowed me to write about things that, you know, would put the main character in situations.

00:41:58:15 – 00:42:01:20
Elliott Wald
Did it was it cathartic? Was it good for you to write that?

00:42:01:23 – 00:42:23:11
Brian Cuban
Absolutely. It’s always good. It’s like telling your story. I go around the United States telling my story, and it’s always cathartic and I always learn something new about myself, whether that’s coming out of my mouth or putting it in writing or I putting it on paper. So when I wrote The Addicted Lawyer, that was one of the first books ever to come out about addiction in the legal profession.

00:42:23:13 – 00:42:23:23
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:42:24:03 – 00:42:38:23
Brian Cuban
So now there are tons of them. Now there are tons of them. But at that time there was only mine and one other. So that got a lot. And that was very cathartic because I talked about things and wrote about things that I had really never expressed before.

00:42:39:01 – 00:42:47:06
Elliott Wald
I think that gives you two things. Sorry to tell you. It gives you account, it gives you cathartic response, but it also gives you some accountability within yourself.

00:42:47:08 – 00:43:08:13
Brian Cuban
That’s right. That’s right. And I was very and when I wrote The Addicted Lawyer, I was very careful because we all have stories. Right? We are the goal in writing the the memoir wasn’t to hurt people. I had tons of stories with, you know, did does the story does the anecdote have a lesson involved and who is it going to hurt somebody?

00:43:08:15 – 00:43:19:04
Brian Cuban
So it’s not it’s not that kind of memoir where you you know, I do write about trade in the Mavericks tickets and all that, but I knew my brother wouldn’t really care when I wrote at the time I wrote it.

00:43:19:04 – 00:43:24:10
Elliott Wald
Listen, at the end of the day, your brother loves you. He’s been there for you and he’s supportive and that’s the message.

00:43:24:12 – 00:43:32:20
Brian Cuban
But there were other things involving marriages and things like that. And I said, wait a minute, there’s a story, but I can’t. The goal isn’t to hurt somebody.

00:43:32:22 – 00:43:33:15
Elliott Wald
Yeah, show.

00:43:33:21 – 00:43:55:07
Brian Cuban
Out. So I found stories that had messages that weren’t salacious to the point where somebody was going to be hurt. Now, you know, when you go into when you move into the fiction category where I wrote my first novel, The Ambulance Chaser, which coincidentally was that when it was released, was the top selling new release novel of that week.

00:43:55:09 – 00:43:56:00
Elliott Wald
Wow.

00:43:56:02 – 00:44:08:06
Brian Cuban
We got a lot of traction for your readers, if you if you like, that kind of stuff. It’s a great book. It mirrors my life a little bit, but I’ve never been accused of murder like this, like the guy the ambulance chaser.

00:44:08:10 – 00:44:26:14
Elliott Wald
Hey, listen, Brian, I go, I’m going to tell you this. You may not have been accused of murder, but I have somebody that I know personally that got addicted to cocaine a very, very big way. Ended up getting that paranoia to the point he ended up murdering someone and chopping up the body. So you never know where it might lead.

00:44:26:16 – 00:44:29:03
Elliott Wald
Know that 730 is.

00:44:29:05 – 00:44:42:03
Brian Cuban
no. Yeah. I mean, and I know people I mean, anyone who’s been in that life, we all know people who are, you know, I have older friends that like who were incarcerated, who worked out, you know, if you’ve been in the life that that goes hand in.

00:44:42:03 – 00:44:45:22
Elliott Wald
And tell me about the body brokers out to December 2020.

00:44:45:22 – 00:45:12:08
Brian Cuban
For a novel which will come out in December of this year is about and is about a character, the same character from the ambulance chaser his girlfriend is he finds his girlfriend dead of an overdose and it draws him into the world of art to find her, to find to prove she was actually murder. He’s drawn into the world of shady rehab clinics that are masking as our fentanyl distribution centers.

00:45:12:10 – 00:45:19:16
Brian Cuban
So he’s drawn into the ground zero of the Fentanyl epidemic trying to prove he was she was actually murdered.

00:45:19:18 – 00:45:23:12
Elliott Wald
Interesting. We don’t have a fence. We don’t have fentanyl in the UK. Yeah, thank God.

00:45:23:14 – 00:45:26:09
Brian Cuban
Yeah. Yeah, we do. It is just terrible here.

00:45:26:13 – 00:45:27:04
Elliott Wald
Yeah.

00:45:27:06 – 00:45:33:20
Brian Cuban
It is. In the United States, Fentanyl has killed off an entire generation is in the process of doing that. And that’s.

00:45:33:22 – 00:45:52:04
Elliott Wald
Why I. Listen, I really. I really enjoyed having you. And. But before we go, I always ask my guests the same question at the end. And that question is, what would you what would you say to somebody who is still in addiction and isn’t sure what to do? What would you what would you recommend for them to do?

00:45:52:04 – 00:45:53:17
Elliott Wald
You know.

00:45:53:18 – 00:46:16:21
Brian Cuban
Figure out who loves you, who loves you? Ask yourself who loves you and why you’re. And it may not be your parent. It may not be a maybe a friend who cares about you and what is keeping you. What are you projecting out that they’re going to say that stops you for asking for help and to from getting that support?

00:46:16:23 – 00:46:38:19
Brian Cuban
Because we all need that mutual aid. You know, these people, you know who I mean, you somebody loves you. Somebody cares you. What is stopping you? Because we project out, they’re busy, they’re going to judge me. They have their own problems, so I’m just going to deal with it. I’m silence. I’m just going to internalize that risk, Take that step because somebody loves you and wants to help you.

00:46:38:21 – 00:46:39:16
Elliott Wald
Yeah, Yeah.

00:46:39:18 – 00:46:44:10
Brian Cuban
Somebody allow yourself to be helped and allow yourself to have a wing person too.

00:46:44:12 – 00:46:55:18
Elliott Wald
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Brian, listen, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for letting me interview you. And I hope to interview again when you write the next book and the next books written.

00:46:55:20 – 00:46:58:20
Brian Cuban
Thank you. Thank you. And can I tell people where they can find my books?

00:46:58:22 – 00:47:01:20
Elliott Wald
1,000%. Go for it.

00:47:01:22 – 00:47:12:13
Brian Cuban
You can find the ambulance chaser at WW W dot author Brian Cuban dot com and then the addicted lawyer is that is just they’re both on Amazon or wherever you buy books Yeah.

00:47:12:13 – 00:47:18:04
Elliott Wald
It’s a UK use Amazon it’s like go on Amazon play Brian Cuban’s books they’ll come up right.

00:47:18:05 – 00:47:24:06
Brian Cuban
Yeah yeah you can go on Amazon and just put in Brian Cuban and all the books I’ve written are going to come up. I hope you’ll check them out.

00:47:24:08 – 00:47:32:20
Elliott Wald
Yeah, definitely get on it, get Brian’s book, get reading, great inspiration and it’s been a great having you as a guest. Brian. Thank you very much for your time.

00:47:33:01 – 00:47:35:19
Brian Cuban
I’ve really enjoyed it. Elliot, Thank you. I hope to talk to you again.

00:47:35:21 – 00:47:36:10
Elliott Wald
Thank you.