How a high-functioning alcoholic beat her addiction and overcame bulimia in the process

Corporate high-flier Julie Landau beat an alcohol addiction and in the process overcame her bulimia. Now she’s helping other women

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Having given up alcohol and broken free of bulimia’s grip, Julie Landau says she feels “lighter, freer and more like myself than ever before”. Now, instead of getting black-out drunk, she is into fitness and coaches women in power. Photo: Julie Landau

Published: 4:15am, 17 Nov 2024Updated: 6:25pm, 17 Nov 2024

Even after her friends found her passed out on the bathroom floor during a free-flow brunch at a restaurant, Julie Landau thought she could carry on drinking.

It took a second episode for the corporate executive to open her eyes to her alcohol addiction and to turn her health – and her life – around.

Now 42, Landau has been sober for three-and-a-half years and has overcome bulimia, an eating disorder she has grappled with since she was a teenager. As an executive coach, she uses her experience to help women in management find confidence, clarity and balance in their leadership roles.

She shares her story of overcoming two formidable challenges and how she got back on track.

Julie Landau is now an executive coach. Photo: Julie Landau

Bulimia – binge eating that is usually followed by self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise to avoid weight gain – became an issue when Landau turned 16.

“I was not overweight, but I lacked confidence and did not feel good about my body. When a friend suggested that vomiting was ‘a way to stay thin’, I tried it. Little did I realise then that bulimia would plague me for the next 24 years,” she says.