Aug 18, 2017
Dear Hossein,
I am pleased to hear your time at your farm went well and that you have new returned to Tehran.
The work Shani is doing on the short videos is very important and I look forward to viewing them when the English subtitles are added.
Your comments on the dangers of sudden withdrawal are very timely. The time spent in addiction treatment in the U.S. has dramatically shortened over the past decades and, now with the surge in opioid addiction, this is a very real concern. People are being rapidly detoxified and discharged or dropping out of medication-assisted treatment too quickly. In both instances, the rate of recurrence of opioid use and related deaths from lost tolerance are quite high. While the phased tapering you achieve with the DST method is ideal, that is the rare exception in the U.S., and we are paying the consequences of this in lost lives.
The response to my Congress 60 paper on your website is wonderful. I have had a similar response from the blog and paper from my website, including many emails of thanks for informing people in the U.S. and other countries about the work of Congress 60.
The questions you pose that must be scientifically tested are critically important. It is sad that at this late stage in the history of addiction treatment we still are unable to answer these basic questions regarding medications and their ideal duration of use. Hopefully we will be able to do so as our work and the work of others advances.
People in recovery have been so integrated into the helping process within Congress 60 that I suspect this no longer strikes you as an innovation. The use of people in recovery as peer helpers is now being revived in the U.S. and there is much we could learn from Congress 60 about how you select, train, and utilize peer leaders. Perhaps we could do a short article on that sometime in the future as our schedules allow.
My memoir of lessons learned in addiction treatment and recovery is near completion. Rita has finished the editing and proofing and we will now be working on the design of the book cover in preparation for getting it published later this year. I will keep you posted on the progress, as it contains descriptions of our work together.
My warmest regards to your family and to all members of Congress 60.
Friends and Brothers Forever