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Hey everyone, I just wanted to real quickly share this huge news for me. I finally struck a publishing deal! Many of you know that I have tried to get this book out and published for, well, about nine years, so it has been a labor of love for sure. I thought I would just get on and express not only gratitude but also talk about how this journey came about. So like I said, I started writing this thing in 2010, so almost nine years ago and the whole idea was to offer it to people who call me up asking “how do I help my addicted son” or “how do I help my addicted spouse” and so on, so forth. I began writing down my thoughts and trying to formulate and organizing. Over the years I reached out and asked for some help and I worked with some of the best minds and the best writers.

[01:20] Thomas Cantrell was my first coach, and it was Chad Hymas that connected me with him. He helped me get started and then I went solo for a while until I hit a ceiling. Then I asked Bridget Cook-Burch to help me. She jumped in and we worked together for a couple of years, Kevin Hall coached me, and various authors have played a part in getting me to this point. In April of last year, 2017 the manuscript was about 85-90 percent finished and it was time to start finding an agent and a publishing house. And so I, I reached out to every agent that I could find to give them my book proposal to see if it was a work that would be worthy of going out into the publishing realm. I received rejection after rejection. I finally found Greg Johnson with Wordserve Literary and he had a felt need because his one of his dear family members has faced chemical dependency. He decided to take this project on. He coached and consulted with me going back to the drawing board. We did some refining on the proposal and then we sent it out to tons of publishing houses.

[02:56] Both of us were extremely optimistic about getting a publishing deal back then. That was in October of 2017 and nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Throughout the holidays, nothing. We didn’t get any response.

[03:31] Finally we heard back from a couple of New York publishing houses and since we were going after the Christian market, because in my book I talk about spirituality, I talk about surrender. I talk about the importance of including a higher power in the process of recovery from any addiction that a particularly chemical dependency and um, they asked what religion I am and needless to say, it got rejected because of my faith. That was a devastating blow to my momentum and my excitement. And ultimately I decided that I was just not going to pursue the book and I just felt deflated and discouraged. Every once in awhile I would feel like I got to get this book done. But, uh, you know, where do you go from there when you get hundreds of rejections? I took it personal so it was really hard for me to overcome that. But in September, my wife and I traveled to New York City and she helped remind me my purpose.

[05:00] I didn’t write this book for it to go international. I didn’t write this book to be a New York Times Best Seller. I didn’t write this to try to impress and, and to create some platform where I could make money. This book was originally inspired to hand to people when they called me and asked, “how do I help my addicted loved one?” And then I could say, here, read this first, and if you’re really interested in learning how to help your addicted loved one the right way, you’ll spend the time and read this because all my advice and all my evidence based suggestions are in here. Then I’ll know that you’re invested and then let’s have some conversations after you read the book. That was the purpose of the book. That was the original purpose. She reminded me that in September, and I felt this relief come off of my shoulders that I don’t need to have these huge expectations in and around this book.

[06:11] I just need to get it bound and into the hands of my family group at Brick House Recovery and also those family members that call me. That pivot gave me the hope and the motivation again to start getting up at 5:00 AM again and start writing again and finishing the manuscript and then ultimately finding a publisher. And I’m so grateful for Greg Johnson, Becky Johnson Wordserve and the help and support that they’re giving me to get this out. In first quarter of 2019 it will be published. It will be bound, it will be available, it will be something that I can hand to those people that call me and ask “how do I help my addicted loved one” or those that reach out to me on facebook. I can’t express how grateful and excited I am.

[07:05] It’s been nine years in the works and it’s been a lot of ups and a lot of downs and a lot of figuring it out and not knowing what direction to go and, and seeking and asking for help and spiritual guidance and direction. And and here we are. So I’m so excited about where this is going and I’ll keep you posted on as it gets closer and kind of walk you through this journey, but I thought I would just jump on this morning and share that portion of the story with you. Thanks for letting me jump on and, and watching this. And uh, thanks for all your support and encouragement. You know who you are. You’ve been with me along the way.