May 21, 2025
Dear Bill,
I hope you are doing well, and I am too.
I am continuing my work, making every effort to establish good connections with medical universities, and we have found common grounds for collaboration. We have had excellent cooperation with medical, social work, and psychology universities in organizing several medical congresses on addiction.
Regarding your question about whether the treatment methods in different parts of Iran vary based on the type of substance or cultural differences:
In Congress 60, the treatment and recovery method for all substances is completely uniform across all cities, with no differences whatsoever. From our perspective, addiction is a disease, and the treatment of a disease always follows a specific method. For example, the same methods used for heart disease in America are applied in Iran as well. This has nothing to do with culture or geographical location, whether the patient is white, yellow, or red-skinned. Therefore, the addiction treatment and recovery method in Congress 60 can be implemented anywhere in the world.
You may recall that the guide certification exam is conducted nationwide, covering technical aspects related to the type of drug and worldview. Fortunately, we have made the most of technology, and individuals can access new lessons every week through their mobile phones using an application. We are also currently using artificial intelligence to standardize our educational programs.
Regarding your second question about female consumers:
As you know, addiction and being an addict carry an unfavorable and stigmatizing label in society. For men, this label is bad, but in our cultural and religious context, it is even more stigmatizing for women. Therefore, we had to create conditions for female consumers—who are often introduced to addiction by family members or friends—to feel safe and trust the process, and for their families to join the treatment program. For this, their sessions had to be completely separate, with no male consumers present. This required years of infrastructure development, and now we have reached a point where we have 10 highly active centers for female consumers, all managed and staffed by women. No men are involved in any part of their workshops. These groups are now very strong and cohesive. In some cities, they even have their own separate buildings owned by Congress 60, and they are expanding rapidly while ensuring their identities remain fully protected, except for those who volunteer to share their message of recovery.
Your third question was about teenagers and young adults, whose percentage in Congress 60 is much lower than in America.
I don’t have precise statistics on this, but in Congress 60, we do not accept individuals under 18 years old to avoid potential legal issues, as they are not yet of legal age. However, there are no restrictions for those over 18. To provide an accurate answer, other sources would need to be reviewed, and if this question is critical, we would need time to evaluate the matter further. However, I have not yet seen any specific centers dedicated to the treatment of teenagers and young adults. In Congress 60, the treatment for an 18-year-old is no different from that for a 70-year-old, and it’s quite interesting that they are all together. Young people bring energy to older individuals, they talk, laugh, exercise, and learn together as classmates. Meanwhile, young people learn from the experiences of older individuals, who act as their teachers.
In Congress 60, smoking is gradually being completely banned, as is excess weight. Those who are overweight are not offered serving/voluntary positions. Nowadays, Congress 60 members jokingly say to each other, “Drink as much tea, coffee, and soda as you can because tomorrow Dezhakam might ban those too,” and they laugh together about it.
Please send my regards to your family and Rita.
Your friend and brother forever, on earth and in the heavens,
I will send the statistics on the guides who have taken the exam in the next letter soon.