Episode 35: The Layers and Pages of Authoring Dear William: A Father's Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love and Loss

Grey Matters Now

Best selling author David Magee, formerly a columnist for Newsweek, a former daily newspaper and magazine publisher, and the author of many books about businesses and sports figures began to shift his focus when he wrote wrote an article for the front page of the local paper in 2016. This personal article ripped the bandage off a wound, to air out and share for a greater good and healing all around. It began with these 2 sentences: "A new freshman class started at Ole Miss this week and I wish I could tell them ALL this story.

It’s about my oldest son William, who was a freshman in 2008, he would gladly tell you himself if only he were alive."

By the next morning the story had gone viral and read by millions of people not only coast to coast but all over the world!!

The ripple affect of this article turned into waves of conversations, community and brainstorming about the why’s re: drug overdoeses, substance misuse, addiction and mental health…evolving into tangible solutions with the opening of the first wellness center of it’s kind on a college campus - The William Magee Center For Wellness. David decided to go deeper turning his focus inward, layers kept coming off and a lot of these layers were dark and uncomfortable yet he kept going. Peeling off layers of intergenerational trauma, addiction, loss and shame. Shedding these old personal heavy layers of responsibility eventually uncovered truth and lightness of self discovery and the joy out weighed the darkness of the past until they reached a personal and family core, and pages were made. He and his supportive family became fully vulnerable and discovered a bright heart center at that core and new found space for more light and love to hold and shine back out to the world.

These pages and this journey of self discovery is now a best selling book: Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Love and Recovery.

Dear William began as a grassroots movement in order to push the healing message farther to those who can benefit. This has also branched into public speaking, Ted Talks, National News, round table discussions…the branches are limitless

In my opinion there is a reason this book became a best seller in just a couple of weeks and book stores all over the country are hustling to keep it in stock.

What David has done with this book is bust down the door of shame and free everyone that was locked behind it to share their own stories and to discuss topics normally considered taboo, weak, embarrassing or sordid. Free people to breathe….I am not alone…free people to make their OWN decisions…free people of peer pressure….free students to care about and help their peers…free us all to dump all of our, now uncorded, de-stigmatized shame, crap and laundry out in the open. We are all now free, chains cut weights lifted, able to move forward to discuss and sort through all this old uncomfortable stuff together and finally use it to problem solve. It frees my generation to stop the cycle of silence and walls and what our parents considered airing dirty laundry in public. W are free to come together as a community to create some solutions to foster compassion, healing and brainstorm about solutions.

Thank you Magee family for sharing how to take tragedy, struggles and dark truths into light, strength and hope.

I have had THE most profound, deep and beautiful conversations after sharing this book , I can’t wait for you to have the same experience after reading and sharing

https://www.daviddmagee.com/

https://www.squarebooks.com/book/9781953295682

https://magee.olemiss.edu/

https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-mornings/video/lmmx_SS55y_eHF9wJR3TV7u38etaSkYW/david-magee-s-new-memoir-dear-william-details-family-s-trauma-with-addiction-loss-and-rebuilding/

Guitar Music by Will Kimbrough