May 23, 2018
Dear Hossein,
My deepest congratulations to the members of your beach rugby team. The photos you sent from the competition were amazing. Their performance offers living proof of the transformative power of recovery and the fruits of sustained participation in Congress 60.
Thank you once again for the wonderful gifts that Dr. Ekhtiari graciously forwarded from you. The framed art is beautiful beyond words and Rita is thrilled to receive it from you. And my family will greatly enjoy the treats you included. Can you tell me about the spice you sent? I do not recognize it.
I like the six prescriptions for breaking stigma that you included in your last email. May I quote you and share these with others?
1. We shouldn’t separate ourselves from normal people and we shall never assume that we differ from them.
2. We should never curse in our speaking.
3. We must dress nicely and cleanly.
4. We should show gratitude to those who are helping us.
5. Never to blame other friends, families and professionals for our problems.
6. We must accept that we are responsible for our troubles in life.
I had a wonderful teleconference call with Dr. Hamed Ekhtiari today. We discussed in some detail how we might support increased research activities related to Congress 60. He had many good ideas and I will be making some calls to other researchers in the coming weeks to explore some of these. We talked about the potential of international addiction experts working with PhD students in Iran on research related to Congress 60 and we discussed how teleconferences might be used to design and collaborate on studies within Congress 60. We thought the latter might overcome some of the travel obstacles that arose in our earlier discussions with the UK research scientists. We also talked about assembling a small international group to do a teleconference to brainstorm possibilities for such research. I will continue to communicate with you and Dr. Ekhtiari about such possibilities after my discussions with some of the researchers that Dr. Ekhtiari and I identified in our call.
I was very impressed with Dr. Ekhtiari’s description of the brain imaging resources now available in Tehran and we discussed how such technology could be using to study the stages of brain healing among those recovering within Congress 60. You are in a very unique position to be able to support and follow people over an extended period of time. That is very different than the brief treatments in the U.S. and in many European countries.
Please extend my warmest regards to everyone in Congress during this season of rest and renewal.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill