March 14, 2023
Dear Hossein,
Rita and I have just returned from our visit with my sisters. The drive between Florida and North Carolina took two days each way. The scenery was beautiful as trees were just beginning to bud out and flower. Time with my sisters was spent walking on the beach, playing games from our childhood and reminiscing about our growing up years. The trip was quite rejuvenating. One of the unique characteristics of Congress 60 is the distinctive blend of intense support provided to members and encouragement for member self-reliance, the latter indicated by the 14-day holiday each year in which members learn to depend upon themselves. Recovery communities that provide inadequate support eventually fail because so many members are unable to achieve stable recovery; those that fail to promote self-reliance are at risk of becoming cults. Congress 60 is wise in its promotion of mutual support AND self-reliance. Regarding your suggestion of authorship of The Little Book of Addiction Recovery: Reflections of Hossein Dezhakam, Founder, Congress 60 Recovery Community, we could list it as “Edited by William L. White.” The title makes it clear that the words in the book are yours and listing me as editor would note that my role was one of selecting the excerpts from your writings included in the book. Would that meet with your approval? I am pleased that you liked the latest draft of the book. With your permission, I will add a copyright page and table of contents to the draft. Would you like the copyright to be listed under Congress 60 or under your name? I have proofed the draft twice but think it would be good to proof read it one more time before we consider the book completed. That will take a few weeks but I do not want this book to contain any errors that would distract the reader. I also wandered during my vacation about the idea of including some photos in the book, but am not sure if this is a good idea. That would require more time on our part to select and caption these but it might be a way to also visually introduce the reader to Congress 60 and visually illustrate some of the topics you address in the book. I am not sure whether including photos or not would be best. What are your thoughts about this? Another issue related to the book is the cover. Could you and Ehsan produce a cover as you did in our last book Innovation in Addiction Treatment and Recovery that I can add to the draft? As for publication of English translation, I would propose that we make the book available for free as we did our last book. I could post it in two places on my website—under the section with your other writings and under the section of my books. I could also provide permission for international addiction treatment and recovery community organizations to post the link to the book on their websites or to repost the book itself. My hope is that the book will be widely distributed internationally and that we could later consider a printed version of the book. Let me know your thoughts on this suggestion as well. I will leave all decisions regarding a Farsi version of the book for distribution in Iran to you. I wish you and all members of Congress 60 warm blessings during the celebration of Ramadan and the New Year.
Friends and Brothers Forever