Recovery Bites Podcast

The Recovery Bites podcast welcomes voices in the field and voices of experience, to get real about eating disorder and mental health recovery.

Join host Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS clinical expert and founder of the Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center, in a catalogue of past episodes featuring candid interviews with experts in eating disorder and mental health recovery.

Listeners can look forward to new perspectives, meaningful conversations, diverse connection, and compelling personal narrative that make a powerful difference in how we live.

Episodes focus on life beyond recovery — the good and the not-so-good, the successes and the challenges, and the authentic accounts of recovered lives. Not their whole story…just bites!

Episode 115 - Unconditional Support with Don Blackwell

by Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS

In this episode, Karin welcomes Don Blackwell father, author, speaker, advocate, and a quiet encourager of those battling and in recovery from eating disorders, to the show for the newest episode of Recovery Bites, “Unconditional Support”

Join Karin and Don for a conversation on the intimacy of the father daughter relationship, turning fear to empathy, beliefs of un-lovability, the harm of a loved one becoming the “identified patient,” the healing essence of letter writing, a father’s vulnerability, Don’s impact on the eating disorder recovery community, and much more.

Don Blackwell is a trial lawyer, whose daughter, Ashley, fought and overcame an eating disorder. Don’s resulting journey to greater self-awareness led to the publication of a book entitled, “Dear Ashley: A Father's Reflections and Letters to His Daughter on Life, Love and Hope.” It also led him to become a speaker, a tireless eating disorder advocate, and a quiet encourager of those battling and in recovery from an eating disorder.

Don has written and spoken extensively on a variety of eating disorder topics, including dads and daughters. In January 2020, Don organized and hosted the Legacy of Hope Summit, a weekend conference of more than 20 of the country’s most respected eating disorder aimed at coming up with a consensus-based series of recommendations designed to move the eating disorder field forward on critical issues relating to Prevention, Early Detection, and Intervention; Research and Research Funding; Standards of Care; Affordability, Accessibility, and Accountability of Care; and Advocacy, Legislation, and Education. The Report and Recommendations that resulted from the Summit were released publicly in March 2021. Don has since become a regular contributor on Sondra Kronberg's Morningside Chats.