April 8, 2025
I found the information on how Congress 60 handles its two holiday breaks each year very interesting. The exceptionally low rate of any unauthorized opioid use and related dropouts from treatment is quite a remarkable achievement and further evidence of the effectiveness of the DST method. I do not think alternative methods of treatment would be able to achieve such results. Your analogy of drugs to the relationship between a car and its fuel is quite apt. In the monograph I have been that focuses on improving adherence and retention in medication-assisted treatment, I have written the following:
“Traditional clinical evaluations focus on what opioid use did to the patient and the extent to which this damage may be ameliorated and future damage prevented through the vehicle of specialized professional treatment. New innovations in service delivery might come from examining what opioid use did for the individual and addressing the extent to which such functions may be addressed within the context of treatment and related recovery support services.”
I think this is precisely what the DST method provides, and Congress 60 meets a large range of other needs through all of the other activities in which the DST method is nested. That is the only reasonable explanation for how individuals and their families can sustain stable recovery during these annual breaks. But you are correct in asserting that such achievement is contingent upon the proper substitution agent, a precise schedule of replacement, and education on the why and how if this procedure. That is what the DST method provides.
Thanks for sharing the latest translation of the Valley speeches. These are very well done. Either option you propose in making them available is workable, but I think making them available all at once would work best. That way individuals can work their way through them in a concentrated period of time. It would be an emersion in recovery worldview that might open pathways of change and the potential for transformative understandings that are unplanned, positive and permanent. The Valleys with more than one lecture would work fine if the opening speech for each was a summary of that Valley. That way, the speeches could serve as an introduction and for advanced study. When those are ready, we can post them on my website or post links to where the English and other versions are posted on the Congress 60 website.
This week, I am working on the final formatting of the monograph I have been working on. Hopefully it will be posted in the next few weeks and then I will begin working on a shorter version for journal publication.
Please extend my warm regards to your family and to all members of Congress 60.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill