Behind the Title: What a Decade on the Frontlines Taught Me About Healing
Before I was a counsellor, I spent nearly a decade working front-line at a treatment centre. A lot of my colleagues were past substance users, all with incredible life stories. The clients came from every walk of life—mandated from jail, high-level executives, parents, elders, and young adults. What they shared was this incredible moment in time where they could come to collaboratively heal together.
Over those years, I learned more than I ever could from textbooks or training. I witnessed transformation, struggle, resilience, and loss.
Here’s what I carry with me from those years on the front lines:
On Shared Humanity & Connection
It is never too late to start healing.
As an Indigenous person doing the work of decolonizing my internalized racism, I learned that substance use didn't only affect Indigenous people. Trauma affects all people.
When you came to the program, it didn't matter if you came from jail, high corporate culture, a mine, or a quiet home— rich or poor, 18 or 80 years old—everyone was there for the same reason.
Therapeutic conversations happen everywhere. Sometimes the best ones took place sitting at the dining room table playing cards, sharing a cigarette, or working on a puzzle.
People want genuine human interaction. They are curious about you, too.
Reciprocity matters. Clients like to care for you, too—even if it's just pouring you a cup of coffee or teaching you a new skill. It is okay to accept it.
On the Realities of the Work
Laughter is good medicine, and play is essential. We forget how to play as adults; watching older men light up with joy while bowling or swimming was breathtaking.
The cook, the maintenance team, and the support workers are just as vital to running a program as clinical staff. Everyone has gifts to contribute.
As much as you want it, you cannot will someone into getting sober, nor is it your job to make people stay.
Changing your entire life is incredibly lonely when the rest of your world stays the same. Before assuming why someone isn't changing, you have to understand what "giving that thing up" actually costs them.
Some people don't get better, and some pass away. The time spent with them when they are clear and sober is precious, showing a version of them the rest of the world rarely got to see.
On Systems, Boundaries, and Growth
AA is not the only path to sobriety, even if the old-timers tell you it is.
The mindfulness we taught in recovery was the exact same practice I was learning in yoga.
Government systems often operate to check off boxes rather than honor Indigenous ways of relational healing.
Who is in management shapes the culture of the work significantly.
Ethics are judged, normalized, and accepted based on the environment you are in.
Burnout is real, compartmentalization is necessary, and learning to apologize when you've unintentionally caused harm is part of the process.
I sometimes still feel like I have something to prove as a counsellor, as if my years of experience before earning the title don’t "count." But the truth is, this work didn’t start when I got a degree. It started in conversations over puzzles and cigarettes, in witnessing people at their most vulnerable, and in learning that healing doesn’t follow a linear path.
Now, with a new title and new responsibilities, I hold onto these lessons. They remind me that therapy isn’t just about therapy—it’s about being human with people.
If you are on the front lines, I see you, I honor the work you are doing, and I hope you are taking care of yourself. The world needs you.
With love,
Chantelle
