The Truth About Becoming An Addiction Counselor (Career Opportunities)

Hey there everybody, and welcome to today's Q and A on how do I become an addiction counselor and why should I? I'm your host or question and answer person, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Now, I've worked in addiction and co occurring disorder settings since the beginning of my career way back in the last century. And I've worked in a lot of different settings from at probation and parole offices to working at the TANF office, to working in residential outpatient intensive, outpatient school based detox. And I've worked with populations ranging from adolescents to veterans to mothers and babies and just your general adult co educational programs. And each one of them has their own unique challenges and their own unique benefits and just amazing aspects in my opinion. I really love working in addictions. The one setting that I haven't worked in has been actually in, in a jail or a prison. And I've heard from colleagues who've worked in those settings that they can be really difficult because a lot of the administration, it's not because the people who are, are incarcerated are more difficult. It's because the environment does not promote health, healing, recovery and all that kind of stuff. So one of the things I get asked a lot is how do I become an addiction counselor? Well, the first thing you can do is figure out if it's something that you want to work in. That's, that's first thing. And if it is, then that's wonderful thinking about do you want to go to school for like a bazillion years and get licensed as a mental health counselor or a social worker and then get an addiction specialty or do you want to start wherever you are educationally and begin working in the field? I know radical with addictions, depending on your state. Most states, not all, but most states will allow people or have options for people to become addiction counselors. With a high school diploma. Yeah, I said it. A high school diploma. If you want to practice independently, if you want to have private practice, then you will need to have at least a bachelor's degree and some what they call addiction specific training. So that's one of the unique things about addiction counselors is that it doesn't require you to go through all of the four years of different classes and math and humanities and all that other stuff that's not relative. It's not related to addiction counseling in, in many, many ways. It really helps you focus exactly on what you need to learn. And that's addiction specific knowledge. Yeah, there's a lot of it out there depending on the level of certificate you're working toward, you may have to get anywhere from 75 out clock hours of training, which 40 hours in a week. So in two weeks, if you did it full time, you could finish your training or some higher levels of addiction counseling certification require between 270 and 361 clock hours. Again. Now I'm not thinking that most people are going to spend 40 hours a week pouring through all the information, but with a general, well, if you did it 30 hours a week, which is reasonable, it's doable. If you studied 30 hours a week, you could could complete 360 clock hours in 12 weeks. Trying to do math in my head, that's not a good thing today. 12 weeks, three months. And you would have your addiction specific training. The next step in becoming an addiction professional, whatever the qualification are, is, are that you are working towards, is to begin getting your supervised clinical hours. And you do this by getting a job at a treatment center and starting to work. So you're getting paid, you're earning money while you are working toward your hours that you need to apply for state certification or licensure. Now it gets a little hinky and it's not really all that complicated if you're working in one state, but different states will call it licensure, some will call it certification. So it's important to know the nomenclature in your particular state. And I'll tell you how to do that in a minute. The other thing that's important is to understand that there are two different bodies, if you will, that certify addiction counselors and your board, your addiction counseling board in your state is going to be a member, if you will, of one of those bodies. And it's either NADAC or icnrc. And one of the beautiful things with ICNRC is it has reciprocity. So if you get certified, for example, in Florida, which is an ICNRC state, and you move to Georgia, which is another ICNRC state, then you just have to fill out a very short form and you can transfer your certification. You don't have to get recertified in a new state. So that is a wonderful thing about ICNRC in terms of addiction counseling in other countries. I am not overly familiar. I know we have a lot of students at all CEUs that are in Africa, various countries in Africa. And the board in South Africa, the health services board in, in South Africa accepts our training. But as far as specific regulations that pertain to providing addiction counseling services in other countries, that is beyond my scope. So I would encourage you to contact your health department, your health board for your state or your country. Now let me see if I can switch over really quick because some of this stuff is just easier for me to show you instead of just talk about. So hang on. This will try my technological savvy here. Oh, hey, sweet. Okay. Didn't even realize I could do that. I don't know why. So one of the things you can do if you are interested in becoming an addiction counselor, you can go to allce.com and then you can go over to CE Approvals to find out and click on approvals map. And if, for example, you're in Florida, you click on Florida and eventually it takes you to the Florida page and you can learn about all the different types of certifications that are available in the state of Florida for people. And you can click on these and it takes you to the board. Now, another way to do it is to go to a search engine. We'll just do Google for right now and type in. Addiction counseling board. And I can't spell today and then the name of your state. So we'll do Virginia. Because I know they have a really good site and it pops up. They say, virginia Board of Counseling. That's not what you want to do. The counseling board is for LMHCs and LPCs. You want to the. The Virginia Certification board. So you click on that and then you can learn about their different certifications here. And they have. They're like Florida. They haven't ever met a certification they didn't like. So you can look and learn about the different certifications that you can get in Virginia. Same thing is true. And it tells you. On their website, it's really easy. You don't have to do a lot of clicking around. To be an advanced alcohol and drug counselor, you need to have a master's degree, clinical experience, and 180 hours of relevant education and training. Going back, your certified addiction counselor has to have a bachelor's degree and then your associate addiction counselor has to have a high school diploma. Now, obviously, if you have a high school diploma, it is. You're not going to be able to practice in private practice. You're going to work in an agency. But to be brutally honest, most people who are seeking to treatment for addictions are going to do so through an agency. Most people in private practice do not offer all of the different levels of treatment. They don't offer detoxification. So you know, it's you. You've got to figure out what you want to do. Now the Other thing I want to point out to you is if I go over to certificate training and all specialty certificates, a lot of these boards, like the Virginia board, have a variety of different certifications and addiction counselor is one of them, case management is another. But then if you have lived experience, if you have had a mental health or an addiction issue, you can apply to become a recovery support specialist or a recovery peer specialist. So there are a lot of different options for you out there. And peer specialists and support specialists, that's your really entry, entry level. And these are people who complete, depending on the state, anywhere from a 30 to 75 hour training and then they're good to go, they're good to start working. And then if they want to proceed to become a certified addictions counselor or addictions professional, the training that they need, the addiction specific training, builds off of what they've already got so they don't have to start over again. It's sort of like a stepping stone if you want to be an addiction counselor in Washington. Okay, so let's go back here to. I'm assuming you mean Washington state. So you go to. Oh, of course my Internet's going to be very slow. Okay, so we're in the Washington State Department of Health. To be certified as a substance use disorder professional, you need to have an associate degree in human services or successful completion of a 90 quarter or 60 semester college credits. And then it talks about experience. And I don't know why it's jumping around so much, but it gives you that information. So what you're looking for is the certification requirements to become a substance use disorder professional or an addiction counselor. Depends on the state what they call it, to figure out, pardon me, what you need to do as far as clinical work experience. You can, most states require that you do it as part of a. Part of your job. You be employed somewhere where you are actually providing direct work, interacting directly with individuals. It's really important to make sure, when you are reading through your requirements, if you have to have, if it has to be paid employment or if it can be volunteer. If it's volunteer work where you go to a clinic and you volunteer a certain number of hours per week, it's really important to make sure that you have a contract with human resources and you have a supervisor that's providing that weekly supervision that you have to have. So either way, um, in Tennessee for example, they do say that it specifically has to be paid employment, which I'm not exactly sure why. And, but I've been in other states where it could have been volunteer, but it has to be supervised. And there has to be a formal contract that can be verified that shows that you worked at that place or volunteered at that place. So many hours. What other questions do you have about becoming addictions counselor or well, I guess becoming an addictions counselor. So you know, while I'm waiting for you guys to ask any questions you have, let's just go back. Let's go to Florida. For the credentials. In Florida, if you wanted to get certified to work in the behavioral health field, if you have a master's, you can become get a master's level certified addiction professional. The cap in Florida requires a bachelor's. The CAC requires a high school diploma or an associate's degree. So you can have a high school diploma. That's plenty to get started with your cac. One of the odd things in Florida is this certified behavioral health case manager. They actually require a bachelor's, but I don't know. So you can find these things out by just clicking on the certificate. And again, this one says have to have a bachelor's degree. And then you come down to recovery peer specialist. One of the things that is really interesting in Florida, for example, is once you get certain certifications. Certified recovery support specialist. Certified, certified peer recovery specialist, the agency that you're, you work for can actually bill insurance for your services. And that makes you more valuable as an employee, let's just put it that way. And more marketable in terms of finding a job. If you want to start the process of becoming an addiction counselor, the first thing is find your state board and figure out what the requirements are in your particular state for what you need to do. And then in most cases, unless you're already working in the field, I advise you to start working toward your addiction specific education. And for example, and there are other providers out there at all ceu. All of our classes are self paced, online, multimedia and based on the YouTube videos. So you've probably already watched a lot of those. But once you start knocking out those, that training and those certificates, then you have something to show employers when you go and you're trying to get hired. Most people are not going to get hired in as a counselor until they get certified. So you're going to work with your. Wherever you're trying to get hired at as a technician or a recovery support specialist is often how people kind of get their foot in the door to start getting their hours. You can work on your education while you're getting your hours. There's nothing wrong with that and once you have finished all of your education, your training, you'll still have quite a while to complete your hours most of the time. Now this is why I say you want to do it as a part of your job. Because in most, for most counselor certifications, you're going to have to get 3,000 hours of client contact, which is two years of full time work. So you're going to have your training, your education component completed long before then. And then you're just going to be getting supervised client contact hours. Then you, once you finish those requirements, you apply to the board and the board will grant you permission to sit for the certification exam. If it's an ic, ICNRC board, you're going to take the ICNRC examination. If it's a NAID act board, you're going to take the NAID ACT exam. You know, pretty straightforward. Most states also require you to take what they call a jurisprudence exam, which is an exam that tests your knowledge of the state's laws and rules. It sounds a lot scarier than it is. It's really pretty straightforward. And some states will require two or three letters of recommendation. Once you have all that done, then you submit everything to the board. They will review it at the next board meeting and then you're certified after that. All you've got to do is get continuing education every year or two years thereafter. And continuing education is just their courses. It's not like you've got to go to a university or something. You can get continuing education very affordably through places like all CEU or, you know, there's a lot of other places your agency might even provide in house continuing education. They may have a provider number and be able to do that. What are the qualifications for a family recovery coach specialist? I am not sure about the regulations in Canada. I am only really familiar with the regulations in the United States. In the United States, in my understanding and rules, laws could have changed. But my understanding that is that currently in the United States there is no law regulating coaches, only regulating counselors. So being a coach is not something you necessarily have to get a formal certification through the state for. In terms of Canada. Let me see. So to be a certified recovery coach in Canada, you need to have 20 hours of education, 125 hours of experience, 75 of that must be paid, and 25 hours of supervision. So that's a lot of supervision for that many experience hours. In Canada it says there are three approved trainers. So Canada is very restrictive on the organizations that they allow to provide Pre certification training. Wow. And it's really expensive there with the training being around $2,000. Foreign. Is the Canadian certified peer support specialist. And this will again, just like the the certification boards in the United States. The one in Canada will tell you what you need to do. It's important to explore before you sign up for training. Whether the training is accepted in. Whoops, wrong place. Whether the training is accepted by your state. Some states require pre certification training to be live. Some states require it to be through a university. There's only like three states that require it to be through a university. So you're good there. Some states, most states actually allowed you to get all of your pre certification education through online providers that are certified or approved by either NADAC or icnrc. And. And crystal in the United States, our version of that would be the certified Recovery Family Recovery Support specialist. Let me see. Type certification. I'm looking to see if I see an anything for family in here. And I'm not. What I would encourage you to do is to contact CACCF and ask them what specifically you need to do. Are there other questions that you have for me about how to become an addiction counselor? Why you might want to become an addiction counselor? Restrictions is unfortunately a rapidly growing problem. And according to. And again, this is just for the U.S. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of need for counseling is growing at 18% per year, which is significantly faster than most other places. The median pay, which is the middle pay for addiction counselors now this is for higher level addiction counselors with a bachelor's or with a Master's is about $50,000 per year. Now it's going to be lower in some areas, it's going to be higher in others. Median is like the middle mark. So I mean, as far as. Is this a job that has longevity? Is this a market that's going to continue to need people? Oh, heck to the yes. We are going to continue to see addictions plague us. And as we start to understand because they're just finally starting to wrap their heads around the concept that addictions come in a lot of different varieties. From substance addictions to behavioral addictions like gambling and porn and sex, to other issues. As we start to see that, then more and more people are going to be seeking out treatment that is tailored to or specific to addressing their addiction issues. Are there any other questions? Alrighty everybody. Well, I appreciate you being here today. Again, all you've got to do if you want to figure out what your state requires is go to Google. Whoops. Well, yeah, it knew what I meant. Type in Addiction Certification Board, and then your state. Now, obviously, I'm in Tennessee, so it pulled that one up automatically. But if you're in Nevada, this is for the Board of Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Counselors. Click on that and you can learn about the licensure process here and what you need to do. All right, everybody, have a wonderful day. Thank you for being here, and if I can answer any questions for you, please feel free to reach out.