Addiction Counselor

Addiction counselors have evolved through the years. When I first started working at an inpatient facility in 1983, most addiction counselors were in addiction recovery, had at least 3 years of recovery, and went through the state certification process to become a counselor. Now, many, if not most, counselors are not in addiction recovery and they have a degree in counseling.

The changes are mostly good, because the more education a person has, the better the treatment, usually. There were and still are counselors who never got a degree in counseling who do a great job. On the job training, mentoring under a psychologist, self-learning, continuing education through workshops and such, supervision by a licensed professional counselor, are all paths to counseling for those without a degree.

Addiction counseling is a specialty. Addiction counselors possess specialized knowledge, and, from my perspective, there’s an art to addiction counseling. Maintaining a balance of compassion and objectivity is difficult, especially for the addiction counselor in recovery. One of the early criticisms of addiction counselors in recovery is that they were too personally involved in the treatment. Recovering addiction counselors must learn to detach when necessary, yet use their unique identification with the client for therapeutic benefit.

The non-recovering addiction counselor is just as capable of compassion, and can get just as personally involved, so this precaution applies to all counselors — it’s just that the recovering addiction counselor might have to do a little more work to find balance. The risk that all counselors take is burn-out – however, burnout is not inevitable, and it’s not even a concern for healthy counselors who’ve learned their profession and know how to protect themselves.

Addiction counseling requires knowledge of the nuances associated with addiction. Many clients in treatment for addiction will play games to avoid facing painful truths. Denial creates a strong defense system, and the alcoholic or cocaine addict or opiate addict protect their drug of choice. To the addict, their drug of choice is what’s holding them together — it’s all that other stuff and other people that they have problems with. The client might want to change, but they want to change the externals – people, places and things – so that they can drink and use drugs without complications.

It’s the addiction counselor’s job to lead the client to recovery without preaching, judging, talking down to, over-identifying, getting caught up in the game-playing, not getting angry at the denial or resistance, and so forth. I’ll write more about this later in the week.