Dear Hossein,
I am pleased to hear that the Companion celebrations went well at all of the Congress 60 branches.
Your vision for the Academy is a noble one that could send a message of hope radiating from Tehran to the world. I know of no country that has not felt the devastating effects of addiction on their citizens and the health of their social institutions. To convey that addiction is a complicated disorder requiring the integrated treatment of body, mind, and spirit (worldview), but that men and women can fully recovery from this affliction to live full, meaningful lives is a message that is desperately needed. The Academy you propose will be able to convey that message.
Speaking of a message of hope, I have been forgetting to mention to you how much I enjoying the documentary film Flash in the Addiction Darkness that your daughter Shani directed. It is a remarkable piece of filmmaking that I found very inspiring. I hope that Shani will direct additional films on Congress 60 and its methods. Please extend my congratulations to her on this excellent work.
I am always amazed by the number of travelers and companions who seek to serve as guides and co-guides. This is very valuable. There have been several studies about the kinds of activities that strengthen recovery and enhance physical and emotional health. Close to the top of the list of such activities is that of helping others. Congress 60 has elevated this to a remarkable degree though the roles of guides and co-guides. I extend my best wishes to all of the candidates who will be taking the exam this year and to the members of the Congress 60 rugby team who will be competing this week.
There is growing interest in the use of sport in recovery here in the U.S., but no one has developed this to the extent that it exists within Congress 60. The one person who has championed this here is Scott Strode (seehttp://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/2011%20Scott%20Strode.pdf for my interview with him.) The website of his organization can also be found at
http://www.phoenixmultisport.org/. I would like to introduce you to Scott at some point in hope there could be some collaborations between the two of you to promote sport-based recovery support activities worldwide.
Rita and I are doing well. My daughter Alisha and her fiancé will be visiting us over the holidays later this month. She continues to enjoy her teaching at the university. We are blessed that our children have brought such pleasure to our lives.
I have been mentoring some students whose doctoral work is focused on addiction recovery. I wish such educational opportunities would have been available when I was younger, but there were no graduate education programs focused on the study of addiction when I entered this work in the late 1960s. I hope your envisioned Academy will attract young aspiring scientists in Iran to this area of study and spur the development of educational programs for them.
I also want to thank Ehsan Ranjbar, who has done such service as a translator for all of our communications. It would give me great joy to be able to communicate with you in your Native language, but I fear I am too old at present to master it. Lacking this, we will continue to rely on and appreciate the translation skills of Ehsan.
Friends and Brothers Forever,