If you could do it all over again, generally speaking, begs the question why would you unless something genuinely appalling came on? And even then, mistakes and even trauma are embedded into life. Very few avoid it, chance more than anything. Working with addicts, you learn underlying traumas underpin so much behaviour.
Mistakes? One appalling relationship. You don’t know a true narcissist and abuser until it’s too late. I met her at a proverbial crossroads. 30 years old, only adult learner back in a cohort of public school types at university after an aborted first attempt earlier in life. Fish out of water, but the course opened up and it was life changing. Then one evening Lady X steps into the realm. Fucked like animals. She made me laugh harder than any other human before or since. Like a flower blooming, was all in at 18months but slowly but surely, things started going missing. Long story involving cocaine, lies, an emptied bank acct the night before finals and the descent of someone into prostitution. The worst of that experience created a route into working with addicts full time. It’s brutal work and I’ve questioned the sanity of seeing people you form v close bonds with repeatedly relapse, but moving sideways into music therapy got rona’d.
Pro’s and cons.