I Was on Recovery Dialogues — Talking About What Happens When the System Runs Out
By Laurie Groh · 2026-08-28 · 3 min read
I joined Antonio Matta on Recovery Dialogues & Sober Stories to talk about something that should make all of us angry: what happens when someone finally finds a therapist who helps — and then the funding runs out.
A few weeks ago I got to be a guest on Recovery Dialogues & Sober Stories, hosted by Antonio Matta — an addiction and mental health recovery podcast that treats recovery as self-improvement: a self-directed process of reaching your potential through deliberate change. Which, honestly, is exactly the kind of room I like being in.
The episode is called "When the System Runs Out: Trauma, Disability, and the Fight to Keep the Care That Works," and it's one of those conversations that stays with you after the mics turn off.
Here's the setup
Cynthia lives with severe depression, anxiety, PTSD, and disability. She did the thing we tell everyone to do — she reached out, she found a therapist, and treatment finally started to feel possible.
And then the funding ran out.
The system that had finally worked for her offered nothing in its place. No bridge. No plan. Just a closed door.
Antonio brought in two of us to unpack it: me, for the clinical side — and Rani Cholagh, a behavioral health access leader from Pacific Health Group, for the structural side. Because this story isn't one bad apple. It's the orchard.
What I talked about
My piece of the conversation was the part most people outside a therapy office never see:
Therapeutic continuity is not a luxury. When a therapist-client relationship gets cut off mid-treatment, it's not like switching gyms. That relationship is the intervention for a lot of people. Ending it abruptly — especially for someone with trauma — can do real harm, and it teaches the nervous system a brutal lesson: don't get attached, help doesn't stay.
"Ghost networks" are everywhere. Your insurance directory says there are forty therapists near you. You call. Twelve numbers are disconnected. Ten aren't taking new patients. Eight don't take your plan anymore. Five never call back. This isn't an exaggeration — it's a documented, widespread problem, and it makes "coverage" a word that looks better on paper than it works in real life.
Access isn't just about affordability. It's about parity enforcement, provider shortages, and coverage walls that quietly decide who gets care and who gets a pamphlet.
Why I'm telling you about it
Because if you've ever lost a therapist you trusted — to funding, to insurance, to a practice closing — and part of you wondered if you were being dramatic about how much it hurt: you weren't. That grief is legitimate. The research backs it, and so do I.
And if you're a clinician listening to conversations like this and feeling the weight of it — same. But naming the system out loud is part of changing it.
Go listen
The full episode runs about an hour and fifteen minutes, and it's worth every one of them. Content note: it covers grief, disability, depression, PTSD, and systemic barriers to care — so listen at a pace that feels safe for you.
Listen to "When the System Runs Out" on Recovery Dialogues & Sober Stories
If this episode hits close to home and you're in Wisconsin, Illinois, or Colorado, my practice Shoreside Therapies is here. And if money is the wall between you and care right now, Open Path Collective connects people with affordable therapy — it's a resource I genuinely recommend.