May 5, 2017
Dear Hossein,
It is always good to hear from you and to hear of the latest activities within Congress 60.
Below is the link to my Facebook profile. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1183183481 My congratulatory post on Congress 60’s recent award generated many positive responses. Rita has encouraged me to get more involved with social media, but I have done little with it other than announce my new blogs on Facebook, Like you, I am doing good to have the time to keep up with phone calls and emails. The social media, however, does seem to reach a large audience, but I will leave most of that to recovery advocates younger than myself.
I hope the co-guide examinations went well yesterday. I am still in awe of the number of people who enrolled to take the examination.
I am delighted that Ehsan has begun work on translation of the “14 articles” book. I will be happy to review and comment on the articles as they translations are completed.
What good news you send on the research that will be conducted on Congress 60’s retention rate by the research center of drug control of Iran. This could be a very important study as retention in treatment is an international problem. In the U.S., less than half of those entering addiction treatment successfully complete treatment, which contributes to the high rate of people we have repeatedly cycling in and out of treatment.
I am sorry the research with Dr. Best and his colleagues has not progressed as we had hoped. The difficulty seemed to be the university failing to approve the faculty travel to Iran. I am wondering if the research might proceed by involving some Iranian collaborators with the UK researchers, which would eliminate the need for them to travel to Iran. The onsite work could be done by Iranian research scientists in the manner we did with Dr. Daneshmand in our smoking cessation study. This may be something we want to raise as a possibility with Dr. Best and his group. I thought the collaboration we did on the smoking cessation study worked exceptionally well.
Rita and I are doing well and enjoying spring in Florida. We are exercising more and I think it is improving how we feel each day. We are also trying to get more politically involved to offer resistance the new President’s policies, including those that effect drug policy. I will withhold details on this as this is a very troubling issue for me at present.
My warmest regards to your family and all members of Congress 60.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill