A Message from William White for Mr. Hossein Dezhakam in Celebration of International Authors Day
My dear friend and colleague. It is with profound pleasure that I honor the contributions you have made through your written works. Innumerable authors report the world as it is. You, however, chose a different path: depiction of the world as it could and should be. Rather than a reporter, you were called to the roles of healer and visionary. Instead of writing about the well-known tragedies of addiction, you chose to write about the souls saved by recovery and the pathways to such redemption. In choosing light over darkness, you offered a beacon of hope to those once deemed hopeless.
We are both storytellers who have sought to unravel the mystery of human transformation. Our writing spans many topics, but all come back to how deeply wounded individuals and families are resurrected and go on to live lives of meaning, purpose, and social contribution. We have offered our words as an act of service, but also out of the sheer joy of creating something that could potentially outlast our own existence. Our written words are simultaneous gifts to the world and our own search for a lasting legacy. Our writings are also a response to unquenchable curiosity and our commitment to lifelong learning. We have sought to understand the mysteries of addiction and recovery and in doing so confronted ultimate questions about the nature of the universe and our role in it.
If you look at Congress 60 today, one is forced to ask, “How does one create such an ever-expanding and ever-thriving recovery community?” There are many dimensions of the Congress 60 story, but it could be said it was all done with words. From the beginning, you channeled suffering into service, service into words, and words into the vision that built a vibrant recovery community. As Congress 60 evolved, you eloquently expressed in speech and writing the transformative values that now mark recovery movements across the globe. You extolled the values of honesty, humility, gratitude, forgiveness, tolerance, respect, persistence, service and, yes, LOVE—a word rarely seen in the language of the addictions field.
So today, we thank you for your eloquence and the bounty of your prolific writings that have lifted and nourished us. And we thank you for your courage in challenging prevailing ideas and pushing the boundaries of what is possible for us as individuals, families, and communities.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
William L. White