Alisha and Stewart’s wedding was held in Allerton Park—lovely gardens, statues, and a once private mansion that is now managed by the University of Illinois. The wedding was held outside in the gardens and it was a beautiful day. I’ve attached some photos from the wedding with a few of the sculptures from the park.
I am pleased to hear how fully the clinics in Iran are integrating the methods of Congress 60. My fear is that as we disseminate information on Congress 60, clinics in other countries will adapt a portion of those methods without fully understanding how the parts work together to support long-term addiction recovery.
The use of revived addicts has gone through great changes in the U.S. In the 1960s and 1970s, many treatment programs that were being started used recovering addicts in a number of roles, particularly as addiction counselors. Then as the field expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, these roles became professionalized and the percentage of people in recovery working within these programs declined precipitously. Since then, there has been a slow increase in recovery representation within the clinics.
The need and demand for addiction treatment in the U.S. exceeds available resources in many communities forcing programs to use waiting lists for entry into treatment. As a result, people entering treatment do so at a very late stage of addiction often years or decades after the onset of addiction-related problems. I believe recovery rates and the harm addiction inflicts on families and communities would be significantly improved if we were able to reach people at earlier stages of addiction. I am giving how we might achieve this a great deal of thought.
As I near the end of my research career, I am gladdened by the appearance of students wishing to focus their careers on recovery-related research. I am currently on the dissertation committees of three students who hope to focus their research interests in this area and who I think will make important contributions to our field. Some of these students are people in recovery who went back to school to pursue formal education in addiction studies. I hope you see a similar trend in Iran. There are now recovery support programs operating on some of our college and university campuses which makes it a much healthier environment for people in recovery wishing to pursue further education.
My best wishes to the wrestling team as they prepare for their trip to Armenia. I look forward to photos of the tournament if they are available.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill