Oct 27,2018
Dear Hossein,
It is always good to hear from you. Your reflections were just what I needed: as others pursue their destructive paths, it is our mission to build. Just as recovery is the antidote to addiction, our larger efforts to create a healthier world are the antidotes that will counter those whose blind arrogance could destroy it.
Please continue to provide information on the website you are creating to host your publications and speeches. I will provide links to the new website so your readers here in the U.S. will know of it.
This week, I attended a conference entitled “Multiple Pathways of Recovery” that was attended by many people in recovery who are organizing recovery support programs and services in local communities across the U.S. I have attached a few photos from the conference. The person I am with in the first photo is Don Coyhis who is the leader of the recovery movement among American Indian tribes in the U.S. He is a person of great wisdom and vision like yourself and has been a great support to my work over the years. One of the ideas emerging from the conference was that the recovery community can serve as a force for healing within the larger cultures and world in which we are nested. In the U.S., people are escaping into their own silos and casting those outside the silos as their enemies—the result of which is that people are talking at each other and not to and with each other. It is a noisy, contentious time in our cultural history. An emerging view from the conference is that the recovery community can bring to the larger culture and world a much needed emphasis on tolerance, respect, compassion, listening without judging, humility, honesty, forgiveness, gratitude, and service. That is quite a big vision but one many of us are committed to pursuing. It is ironic that people who have been socially stigmatized because of their past addictions may have something so important to gift to the societies that have in the past rejected them.
We have communicated a great deal about the work of Congress 60 in and the role of sports, music, theatre, community services, etc. play within Congress 60. I am pleased to say that in the U.S. more people in recovery are organizing such activities. We are beginning to see recovery-focused sports activities, adventure activities (camping, hiking, mountain climbing, whitewater rafting), recovery cafes, recovery residences where people without families can live together in a recovery supportive home, recovery social centers, recovery theatre projects, and recovery support programs in some of the colleges and universities that help people in recovery pursue advanced education. I would like to think that my profiles of Congress 60 have helped increase interest in such activities in the U.S. and their importance for people seeking recovery.
We are nearing the end of the season where we are at risk for hurricanes and the temperatures and humidity are beginning to decline. As a result, many people from the north are arriving to escape the coming cold weather in our northern states. That means there will be many more people here and much more traffic than we see during our summer months. Those of us who live here year around have come to expect these two quite different seasons where there is an invasion of people in the fall and a mass exodus in the spring.
I look forward to hearing more about D.Sap and its beneficial effects.
Friends and brothers forever,
Bill