October 31, 2024
Dear Hossein,
Thank you for your well-wishes on our recovery here in Florida from the hurricane damage. That process continues with much progress again this week to our area and to the building in which Rita and I reside.
Thank you also for the Congress 60 serving form (Thanks Ehsan for the translation) and your expanded explanation of the service scoring and the many volunteer roles that keep Congress 60 functioning each day. The sheer volume of volunteer service roles and the spectrum of service activities is quite impressive. I was able to use what you sent me to expand the discussion of service activities within the draft that will introduce our latest study. I am not sure yet, but there may be so much publishable information that we will do this as a two-part article series—one presenting the updated profile of Congress 60 and the second presenting the comparison of Congress 60 member profiles and the lates patient profiles we have from U.S. addiction treatment admissions. We can make that decision once the data analysis is completed.
I have expanded the literature search for our paper to include some other dimensions of Congress 60 that I hope we can include in the papers. One of the more important treatment outcomes related to medication-assisted treatment is that of duration of treatment and retention. I have spent the last two weeks reviewing retention studies in treatment utilizing OT, methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone and hope we will be able to have enough date from Congress 60 and the U.S. treatment sample on retention to include in the paper. I’m also quite interesting the drug testing that occurs after DST treatment completion—the schedule of such tests, who conducts the tests, and how the statistical department of Congress 60 or another organization compiles aggregate results from such tests. Can you provide me more information about this? Very little post-treatment drug testing data is available related to medication-assisted treatment so this could make our study particularly strong if we can include it.
I wish you the very best for the “Golrizan” ceremony. When I describe Congress 60 to my professional colleagues around the world, they are astounded by Congress 60’s financial independence. That a community of people recovering from addiction can achieve such a feat defies what so many, even service professionals, believe about addiction treatment and recovery. Congress 60’s insistence on financial on self-sufficiency is living proof of what is possible.
Other than work on our latest study, I have assisted with two other papers related to peer recovery support services that are set for publication in the coming months. Interest in training peers with lived experience of addiction recovery for service roles within addiction treatment and other settings is increasing rapidly and I think will enhance interest in Congress 60 internationally in the coming years.
Please extend my best wishes to your family and to all members of Congress 60.
Friends and Brothers Forever