The first day of the eleventh annual international congress of addiction science began a meeting with the presence of Mr. DezhakamT experts in addiction treatment and Congress60’s members.
The international congress is held by the efforts of Cellular and Molecular Research Center and the Secretary of Addiction Prevention and Treatment of State Welfare organization in Razi center on September 13-15 every year. The Congress is an opportunity for national and international professors, experts, researchers and those involved in the issue to share their valuable viewpoints and experiences in line with the pivot of the Congress.
Accordingly, Mr. Dezhakam, some of Congress60’s members and some researchers of the field attended one of the workshops on Wednesday
What you will read is a detailed report of Mr. Dezhakam’s speech in the Congress.
I am so glad to be here with the prominent professors Dr. Chalak and Dr. Aqabakhshi.
It may be interesting for you to know that my acquaintance with Dr. Aqabakhshi doesn’t refer to addiction but literature. He is a distinguished literary man. I had written a play called “Ta’arof-e- Khorasani” about Shams and Rumi. I believed that Shams didn’t exist and is a mystical character. The play was received by him and this caused us to have intense devotion to him. Thereafter we signed several memorandums with Allama Tabatabaei and Azad University and then we found that we are social workers.
Wherever a group of people congregate and form a community, there you can find drugs and alcoholic drinks, too.
I believe that no one uses drugs for no good reason. Do not consider addicts insane or talentless. That is not the case.
There are so many addicts with different social positions that you cannot imagine. Why? Because drugs are helpful for them. Drugs are a powerful and magic substance for doping.
They can solve people’s problems in a short period of time in a way that other substances cannot. In other words, when an individual cannot work and needs extra energy, drugs can use up the stored energy in his/her body.
All people make a big mistake when they think that drugs creates energy whereas they don’t. They influence people’s nervous system. For instance, when a housewife uses meth and can do all the housework, she thinks this is the energy of drugs while she has used the stored energy in her body.
.jpg)
Today, it is supposed that by gathering the actors and artists for advising addicts we have socialized a movement whereas that is not the case and addicts don’t follow their advice. We should take this issue serious that drugs are attractive which we must evaluate their merits and drawbacks. Drugs initially provide humans with everything but after a while they get everything back.
Suppose that a truck driver has loaded up his truck and is going to go to Bandar Abbas. After 6 hours driving he feels sleepy, therefore he takes two pieces of opium extract or smokes opium, and gets to the destination energetically. This is not the false energy but the energy which should be used during 60-70 years, but it is used during 20 years and makes him exhausted.
Another subject is that no one knows addiction well. When it is said that addiction has relapsed, it means coming back (to the first point). I believe that nothing has happened so there is no relapse. You say I went to Karaj and came back, okay; but regarding addiction, it is not true to analyze the relapse percentage because no treatment has happened yet.
On one hand, there are some beliefs in the scientific and non-scientific communities saying: Addiction can never be cured. It accompanies you until the death. On the other hand, those who are going to cure it use maintenance methods and it is said that addiction is a mysterious disease, which means nothing can be done for it.
It is also mentioned that addiction is an incurable while it is said that it is progressive, which means drug consumption is constantly increasing. Then it is said that it should be cured.
Do we really know what we want to do? Do we know what addiction is? Do we know the problem description? Do we know that when being addicted, body, psyche and worldview are involved? All these three parameters should be treated together.
Drugs and alcohol pass the blood-brain barrier and are replace endorphin, dopamine, enkefalin, dinorphine, serotonin, adrenaline, and so on.
Have you ever noticed how humans go sleep? Acetylcholine, serotonin and adrenalin must be secreted in blood circumstance in order for the individual to go sleep. These substances are not normally secreted in addicts’ bodies and they need opium or alcohol to sleep. Drugs have made a house in an addict’s body.
All short-term treatment methods will shock his/her body physiologically and hurt their immune system. In order to cure addiction this replacement must be reversed and all the systems related to body immune must be rebuilt.
I believe that any kind of drug addiction can be cured a hundred percent provided that a reasonable way is used. If a heroin addict can sleep in a store of heroin overnight, we can claim he has been cured. I communicate with great American professors who haven’t found any treatment method for addiction yet whereas we have discovered addiction treatment method in Iran since 20 years ago.
Ms. Noura, the director of NAIDA who corresponds with me, wrote an article saying: We hope we discover a substance by which we could cure meth addiction in the next ten years. I said we have been curing it for 15 years. 11000 members are using Opium Tincture and this is a great research we are doing.
NGOs undertake 90 percent of addiction treatment and control. How much budget do they have? People want to do exercises? How? Where? Football, volleyball, badminton, rugby on paving?
To socialize the phenomenon, you should open the doors of stadiums and pools for free. When a family of three wants to rent a house, they must pay 70-80 million tomans (about $ 280 million) for mortgage and a monthly-sum of money. How do you expect NGOs to continue without money? Should they go to parks? How can they cure 300-700 addicts?
If we want to have a socialized view toward addiction treatment, we should allocate necessary spaces to NGOs to gain good results.
Prepared by: Companion Akram
Translated by: Marjan
