This is a typical overly cynical and overly online take. I think it would be dispelled by talking to or being friends with a single person that works in rehab

there are certain places where a lot of dubious, predatory drug rehab facilities have popped up in the last decade, since health insurance now has to pay for it, yet it's not quite regulated like other healthcare. if you see a lot of these it can make you very cynical.

I'm sure bad things happen, but to embrace all or nothing cynicism is to reject reality.

It is pathological in it's own right to paint the world with such broad and biased brushstrokes.

You could apply this to countless professions.

Plumbing is about making a lot of money, they benefit from you pipes leaking again.

We just have to hope that human beings actually care about their work.

Rehab helps about a quarter of the people it treats - provided you accept that they'll probably need multiple rounds of treatment. It's wicked to encourage the belief that a single round of rehab, followed by lots of willpower, is likely to solve problems.

Single rounds of rehab do sometimes work, and longer sessions have better changes. Willpower is part of it, but often completely changing one’s social circle is critical.

Commenting under you on the entire subthread here....

I think this is a two part problem. If you talk to a particular therapist/counselor it would be very rare to find one that doesn't want to see you get better. In general the people at this level are empathetic and do care.

But above that there is a 'rehab system'. You start moving away from the people that want to see other people get better towards that people that want to see the system make as much as much money as possible no matter the cost.

We talk about systems like this all the time here on HN with the term 'Molochs'. Systems where the individual optimum would be X, where X is things people actually like and think are good. Instead the system optimizes towards Y, where Y is far worse outcome for individuals, and individuals are seemingly powerless to stop the system from optimizing on Y.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Cleaning houses is about making money too. Eventually you're going to be ready to keep the house clean after they leave.