{"id":6818,"date":"2014-09-25T11:44:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T18:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=6818"},"modified":"2014-09-25T11:44:36","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T18:44:36","slug":"writing-the-book-on-gratitude-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=6818","title":{"rendered":"Writing the Book on Gratitude & Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Williams and Tracey Jackson collaborate on new book that uses the principles of the recovery movement to help just about anybody<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Longtime friends\u2014the pair first met in Robert Mitchum<\/a>‘s bedroom in 1982\u2014Paul Williams<\/a> (yes, that<\/em> Paul Williams, the Oscar-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winning Hall of Fame songwriter) and Tracey Jackson<\/a> (who write the films Confessions of a Shopaholic<\/em><\/a> and The Guru<\/em><\/a>, among others) had talked about doing a project together for years before inspiration finally struck.<\/p>\n

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Authors Paul Williams and Tracey Jackson will appear at Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito on Sept. 25. Photo courtesy Gratitude and Trust Facebook page.<\/p><\/div>\n

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“I always had a fascination with the recovery movement. I always felt that it was a great foundation for all people and that all people should probably be required to go through it just on general principal,” says Jackson<\/a>, who grew up in Santa Barbara. “I had kind of always been envious of … Paul and various other friends in my life who had been in recovery and I had seen the difference it made in their lives.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Williams starred in the 2012 documentary Paul Williams, Still Alive<\/a><\/em>, and during a Q & A after a screening of the film, “he mentioned his choo choo ran on the twin rails of gratitude and trust.” Jackson says, “the light bulb went off in my head and afterwards I said you know, that’s it. That’s a book, gratitude and trust.”<\/p>\n

With a basic underlying theme of “recovery is not just for addicts,” the pair set out to make the project a reality, quickly developing a book proposal that sparked a bidding war and ultimately publishing under Blue Rider Press<\/a>, a member of Penguin Group. They also launched a website, gratitudeandtrust.com<\/a>, and immediately began connecting with readers.<\/p>\n

Williams, who will celebrate 25 years of sobriety on March 15, says, “For 24 years people had been saying to me, ‘I wish we had something like you have to turn our lives around and to clean up our lives, I wish we had some process like you have in recovery. ‘ And I never really knew how to share that until …Tracey became a catalyst to finding a way to do it.”<\/p>\n

He continues, “It’s been an amazing journey to write this book.”<\/p>\n

Gratitude & Trust<\/em> <\/a>offers “Six Affirmations of Personal Freedom,” along with anecdotes and advice from both authors individually, as well as their collective voices. The six affirmations are:<\/p>\n