'The Unlikely Pilgrims' film & group v individual needs

The 'The Unlikely Pilgrims' documentary popped up in my Amazon Prime Video feed and with nothing better to watch I thought I would give it a go. This is a gritty, raw, and unromantic portrayal of the camino and it's not easy viewing at times. I don't want to criticise the project too much because it takes a lot of guts to try something new and I think this was an ambitious thing to try. In another thread dougfitz wrote:

dougfitz said:

@Walter1407, I was fortunate enough a couple of months ago to attend a viewing of the Australian documentary 'The Unlikely Pilgrims' which took the tagline 'nothing heals like a little distance''. Its blurb states:

The film follows Ronan, a counsellor, who believes that rescuing can do a lot of damage. He also believes in the healing power of long-distance trails. Ronan invites a group of recovering addicts to walk the 800km Camino de Santiago, with him as their guide. The walk challenges them to breaking point, and there is immense growth, but there is significant cost to Ronan as a result.​

For me, it reinforced that anyone who encourages someone who is mentally fragile to join them on a venture like this takes on an enormous responsibility. Amongst other things, it really requires the person who acts as a guide to determine what is most important - the achievement of any personal pilgrimage objectives or the welfare and care of their companions.

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I couldn't agree with this more. Strikes me that it is very difficult to balance group and individual needs on a camino in which people are walking to deal with something in their lives. I don't want to bash camino tours because I know a couple of people who had awesome experiences walking in groups and if you want a walking holiday, group spiritual experience, a local guide, etc. why not? But I can't help thinking that if you want to walk a camino to work out a problem then I think you need a lot flexibility to walk alone or have a short/long day and deal with the emotions of whatever is bothering you. I am unsure how you do this in a group where you are almost certainly on a fixed schedule.

trecile said:

Am I the only one who doesn't think that taking a group of recovering alcoholics to a place with free flowing vino tinto is a bad idea??

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The film is about recovering drug addicts though, most of whom seemed to have been using drugs to forget about pain/mental illness in their lives.