AE - Intervention Asa

Asa, 28, was born into a blue-collar, mixed race family in a predominantly white, small town in central coast California. His father was hard on him growing up and his mother showed her affection for him through food. As a child, Asa struggled with low self-esteem and body image issues. Classmates teased him relentlessly because of his size, his ethnicity and his effeminate manner. In a desperate attempt to lose weight in his late teens, Asa turned to bulimia. He came out as a gay man at the age of 19 and started using hard drugs and drinking heavily. For the past 10 years, Asa has been working towards his Bachelors degree. Being a student of the medical sciences, Asa understands how both his eating disorder and alcoholism are affecting him, but self-knowledge has still left him unable to stop his destructive ways. Asa's bulimia and alcoholism are interfering with his work, studies and relationships. His family knows he can't survive this way much longer. Having an intervention for Asa is the last chance to break his denial and save his life.

• documentary