Counsellors and therapists are worth it

 

published in Muddy River News Oct. 14, 2025

One of my friends in the Franciscan Order recently celebrated 47 years of sobriety. It has been 47 years since he left a facility that helped religious and priests suffering from alcoholism to achieve sobriety.

Treatment like that was and still is expensive. It took my friend three months in that residential facility before its staff judged that it would be okay for him to return to a normal life. But the treatment was successful. The staff knew what it was doing.

There are many people who work in the mental health services who know what they are doing. Our problem is that we do not want to pay such people in proportion to the benefit that we receive from their services. When a recovering addict returns to society and is able to live as part of a family or church, and is working productively, we do not measure what we have all gained from their recovery.

We do not grumble about the cost of guns and fighter jets and submarines. In recent years we have spent hundreds of  billions of our hard-earned dollars to upgrade our nuclear capabilities, even though we know that if we were ever to use those capabilities, we would destroy the world for human habitation.   

We need to put our dollars where they will really do some good.  We need to use them to pay therapists and case workers and personal assistants. And not just people who help us with our aging bodies. We need to pay the people more who clean our houses or landscape our yards. The people who help us when we are ill or old contribute more to our well-being than material stuff that we buy. Too much stuff goes into storage before it goes to the landfill. We should forget stuff and think people. We need to put our money into helping each other live more fully and more abundantly.