I’m getting joyfully close to retiring from the Addiction Counselor/Clinical Supervision field. I’m too old for the “Substance Use/Abuse” moniker. Sometimes a cigar actually is a cigar, and minimizing or salving reality isn’t really my bag anymore.

But yes, I am indeed an addiction counselor/clinical supervisor nearing the end of his career. 18 years as of August, which doesn’t seem real. I am way too lazy, unfocused, disorganized, and lackadaisical to do anything for 18 years. If past behavior were a predictor of future behavior, this whole counseling thing would make no effing sense. (Clue #1 that pop psychology is rubbish. Aphorisms get you nowhere, but I digress.)

I’m also a person in long-term recovery, with 32 years clean and sober as of August 8th, 2024. It took me years to get the recovery/12-step mindset out of my counseling approach, and I deeply regret any pain that I caused people in my early career.

My Background

I began my career as a certified addictions counselor intern, with a high school diploma. I’m not entirely certain that the public at large is aware that a significant portion of addiction professionals have a high school diploma and a couple hundred hours of education and training. While the profession is embarked on a path to becoming more “professional,” the fact remains that many counselors treating addiction are completely unprepared and poorly trained to address contemporary addictions in substance abuse and misuse.

Additionally. a majority of licensed counselors have degrees in Social Work or Mental Health, NOT in Addiction Counseling or Psychology. They are qualified for the most part, but their perspective can tend to tilt towards mental health issues. But let me be clear: if it weren’t for these people and the skills they bring to the table, there’d be no addiction treatment field at all. I’m a rare beast, and have yet to meet another counselor in the wild who also has a degree in Addiction Counseling. (My diploma states “Addiction Studies”, but the current degree offered is a MA in Addiction Counseling and Prevention.)

Even worse, many addiction counselors get into the addiction treatment field via their own personal recovery. It is so ingrained into treatment in general, that I doubt there’s much that can be done about it. Counselors begin treating people from their own personal perspective, which had its best is empathetic, compassionate, and provided by someone who has “been there.”

At it’s worse, it can also mean that the counseling is coming from a place of judgment and superiority, “if the client would only do what the counselor says to do”, all would be fine. I have personally witnessed instances of recovering counselors exaggerating diagnoses and mandating additional hours of treatment because the client was resistant to traditional 12 step methods or doesn’t have a sponsor. This is unethical, barbaric, and comes from a fundamental lack of skill, training, or effective supervision.

I have a BA in Psychology from American Military University and an MA in Addiction Studies from the University of South Dakota. With the exception of my associate’s degree from Coastal Carolina Community College, my educational experiences have been online. And this was back in 2012 thru 2017 when online meant they were trying to prove they were as good a brick and mortar. In other words, it was tough.

My Masters in Addiction Studies brought me to the dance as a licensed addiction counselor and clinical supervisor. It has also caused me a lot of grief, as most of the time in my career I’ve been practicing substance abuse treatment amongst professionals who can’t even list the withdrawal symptoms of cocaine. This is not good. This is downright unacceptable. It’s even made me wander into the wondrously toxic space of being a Life Coach.

This made me a very bitter person for a couple of years. I was definitely no fun to work with, to the point that I didn’t get invited to any of the employee parties. My behavior during this time was equally not good, equally downright unacceptable. Until I figured out that there was a way for me to make it work for me…

Going Too Fast

I was able to secure a job as an instructor at a local community college. I had the opportunity to re-create an entire year-long curriculum, coincidentally while I was studying for the IC&RC Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist (LCAS) exam. Other than my current private practice situation, it was the crowning achievement of my career. I’m very proud of what I was able to accomplish, and grateful for the insights and resilience that being a community college instructor force me to develop.

That experience helped me pass the addiction counselor exam without a hitch, and ultimately took me right into the Clinical Supervisor realm, as I became a Counseling Supervisor Intern (CS-I) about 10 minutes after I got my license. Editorial note: no one, and I mean no one, is ready for that leap without at least two years of clinical experience as a licensed counselor.

My career came within an inch of totally imploding because I became a clinical supervisor too quickly. Of course, no mistake is worth making unless you can double down on it, and within a year of being a clinical supervisor at one methadone clinic, became the area clinical supervisor for five methadone clinics. It did not go well at times. #understatement

Methadone Program Director

My final act of stupidity was going from clinical supervisor to Program Director at a methadone clinic. That one nearly killed me, literally. In less than a year of that nonsense I found myself in a VA hospital psych ward for oberservation, mostly due to a near hilarious miscommunication. The VA did what the VA needs to do, and after a few hours of sitting in an impregnable padded cell, I was released with copious apologies. Still, the message was sent: it just wasn’t received.

It took five more months of voluntarily walking into an insanely untenable situation before my body told me that’s it, no more. I unceremoniously lost my shit after months of violent behavior from patients, counselors being hospitalized due to the violent behavior of said patients, and the criminally negligent indifference of senior management and the Board of Directors.

We had holes in the walls, disgusting bathrooms and unpainted rooms in a clinic that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. Security cameras were pointed everywhere except for the areas that needed monitoring, like outside the pharmacy door. Grocery clerks made more money than the counselors on staff, some of whom couldn’t pay rent AND buy groceries. My moral injury from being a part of it has taken years to begin to heal.

Sometimes anger is real, not a fear reaction. More on that another time.

Sunset into Twilight as an Addiction Counselor

So here I am, three years later and contemplating the lessons of my career. It has been the most wonderful thing I ever could’ve done in my life, peppered by the stupidest things anyone in long-term recovery could be expected to do. It’s all funny from a certain Vonnegut/Heller/Hunter S. Thompson point of view.

I’m entering the sunset of my career. My initial plan was to let my license expire in 2025. Instead, it’s more likely that I will complete the check in the box coursework and resubmit for my license and my clinical supervision certification. I’m having too good time with my current caseload, and an absolute blast being a clinical supervisor. Some of the most satisfying and meaningful days I’ve ever had have occurred over the past six months. I’m very proud of the people that come to me for help and guidance, and I wish I could blow their anonymity and share details. But, I’m not that far gone…

This is my intro post for content I want to build on over the next year. I’m not sure how often I’ll post, but I expect once a month to be about the norm. Most of my time is spent in my primary gig, over at clean and sober stoner. That’s my primary blog, where I’m managing editor for a recovery-adjacent website about Stoner/Doom music. And yes, I absolutely love the apparent contradiction in that. You’d be shocked to find out how many people involved with heavy metal and heavy music are in recovery, or at least recovering from alcohol abuse. We also have a YouTube channel that I’ll refer to from time to time.

In the meantime, thanks for reading. I’m hoping for things to get quite interesting soon…