بیل: D.Sap در طی این پاندمی طولانی بسیار برای اعضای کنگره 60 مفید واقع شده است

99/3/1

حسین عزیز

May 21,2019

Dear Hossein,

Your delay in writing due to Ramadan was expected. I am sure you made the very best of this time even without the usual feast due to the coronavirus.  I am pleased to hear that you remain well and as involved as ever. I remain in good health and continue to isolate as much as is possible. The use of D. Sap appears to be serving Congress 60 members well during this enduring pandemic. Thank you for your suggestions in this regard.

Starting the group sessions again with needed safety precautions will be welcomed by so many of your members. This has been a strained time for so many of us in recovery. We miss the fellowship of gathering with others in recovery from support and celebration.

I am pleased to hear that your planned focus for the international university will be on long term recovery across the multiple liberal arts. In the U.S., we have university programs that are called “addiction studies” but only recently is their interest in shifting this focus to recovery. That is occurring through two venues. The first is the growth of collegiate recovery programs that combine recovery support and academic coaching for people in recovery who are pursuing a college education. The second is the advent of “recovery studies” at one or two universities that hope to do something similar to what you are pursuing.  One of these is at Texas Tech University who will be offering a recovery-focused study program at the Master’s and PhD levels. I am working with three other people at present to write a short blog or paper on these efforts and will let you know when it is posted.

I have been thinking about what I have written that might be of help to you in this effort.  I am attaching two papers that might be of interest. The first talks about the need to shift from a focus on addiction pathology to a focus on long-term personal and family recovery. The second (I will send in a separate email) details how such a focus would be different than the traditional training of addiction counselors. I hope these will stir your continued thinking. The idea of an international university focused on the study of addiction recovery lifts my heart and stirs my mind with its possibilities.   

Here in the U.S., we continue to try to adapt addiction treatment and recovery support programs to restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Many treatment and recovery support activities have shifted to online formats but states are now beginning to relax social distancing guidelines so there will likely be more face-to-face meetings in the near future.  I know that many will welcome this, but I fear it is happening too soon here and that there will be a cost exacted in lives. The decision to relax social contact restrictions seems to be a highly political one and one not guided by public health data. I fear we will pay a price in the coming months for this but hope that I am wrong in my predictions. I have been reading several books on the history of earlier human epidemics and pandemics and feel there is much we can learn from this history if we would sit at its feet and listen to its lessons.

Rita and I remain in good health but we have two friends who have died from complications of the virus and several others who have recovered from it who have shared how severe their symptoms were. I do wish the very best for continued health for you and your family and all members of Congress 60 and applaud the efforts you are making to get everyone through this challenge to our health and future.

Friends and Brothers Forever,

Bill

 مترجم: احسان رنجبر