By Tom Sinclair

So you’re on a natural high because you’ve been clean and sober for a year or two and you think you’ve finally figured out what to do with your life. Since you live, breathe, eat, and dream recovery anyway, why not make a career out of helping addicts and alcoholics and become a professional substance abuse counselor?

There’s no question it’s a noble calling. But take a deep breath, pilgrim. Before you jump into it, there are a few things you should know about the career you’re considering.

First off, substance abuse treatment is still a young and evolving field. It boasts a colorful, offbeat, and occasionally hair-raising history. These days, the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) monitors and regulates substance abuse treatment in New York State, imposing ethics and enforcing standards. But not all that long ago, the substance abuse field was — in the words of one long-time human services worker — “like the wild west.”

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the “it takes an addict to help an addict” philosophy was the norm. Many folks came into the field largely on the strength of their having gotten clean and sober, often in a 12-Step program. Indeed, the so-called “recovery mafia” launched many individuals into counseling careers.

One counselor tells of working as a janitor in a treatment program some years ago. One day, the program’s director heard him speak at an outside AA meeting. “He liked what he heard, and asked me if I wanted to try being a counselor,” says the individual, chuckling. “The rest is history.”

Membership in a 12-Step fellowship wasn’t the only road to a job. It also wasn’t uncommon for a person to graduate from a therapeutic community, such as Phoenix House or Daytop Village, get a peer-counseling position within the facility, and eventually parlay that experience into a paying gig with an outside treatment agency or hospital.

Credentials were moot. The late Julio A. Martinez, former commissioner of OASAS’s predecessor, the Division of Substance Abuse Services (DSAS) and a co-founder of Phoenix House, liked to boast that he attained his highest educational accomplishment — a GED — while in prison. Indeed, in yesteryear’s counseling world, it often seemed you were better off coming to the field from jail than from Yale, to paraphrase a 12-step saying.

The good or the bad news, depending on your viewpoint, is that things have changed.

A DAUNTING TASK
About 40 years ago, addictions counseling began transitioning from “paraprofessional” to “professional” status. As William L. White writes in “Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America”: “In 1970, the challenge for the alcoholism and drug abuse counselor training field was nothing short of the creation and legitimization of a new profession… The task was a daunting one: to prepare a new field of more than 40,000 workers who came to their roles with almost no relevant academic experience.” Thus, the process of instituting alcoholism and drug counselor training programs as stepping stones to counseling careers began.

As a consequence of those changes, some states now require that counselors be college-educated. However, in New York it’s still possible to become an addictions counselor with as little as a GED provided you have completed the requisite 350 hours of training required by OASAS to become a Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor Trainee (CASAC-T). But bear in mind that, without a Bachelors or Masters degree, a CASAC-T will need to clock 6,000 work hours (roughly three years) in the field before being able to sit for the CASAC exam.

Doug Rosenberry, Bureau Director for Talent Management for OASAS, says the state is working hard to attract more people to pursue careers as CASACs. At present, he notes, there are approximately 7500 CASACs in New York, more than in just about any other state. “The unfortunate news,” says Rosenberry, “is that the average age of our CASACs is 53 years old. That tells us that we’re going to be losing a lot of them within the next five to ten years as they age out and reach retirement age. We’re concerned because there isn’t a ready pool of people to fill those slots as they leave.”

Rosenberry admits one key reason more people aren’t banging down the doors to become addictions counselors is the modest salaries. Beginning counselors, if they’re lucky enough to land a plum job, can look forward to earning about as much as a fledgling social worker. New York State is currently offering Addictions Counselors between $45,490-$48,966 to start, although many non-profit agencies pay considerably less.

“Certainly, the salaries work against us,” says Rosenberry. “Many of the non-profit agencies that employ CASACs can’t offer competitive wages commensurate to the mental health or criminal justice systems. That’s one strike against providers in this field. Another strike is the career ladder. Even once you take a position as a counselor in many agencies, there aren’t many opportunities for advancement, unless you become a supervisor or move into management.”

Aside from the meager paychecks and the glass ceiling, the work is hard. Addiction counselors sometimes carry heavy caseloads and deal with a difficult population. And there is the ever-increasing mountain of clinical paperwork that must be completed on each client, an aspect of the job that many counselors find onerous. “This field used to be a lot of talking, one-on-one communication,” a supervisor from a major therapeutic community observed recently. “Now, it’s a lot of writing and record-keeping.”

CHANGES BREWING?
If all that sounds grim, don’t despair. Right now, there’s a move afoot to create a more formal career ladder for substance abuse workers, with the eventual promise of greater financial rewards for more educated counselors.

“Our federal counterparts at SAMHSA (the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) have actually developed a model career ladder which they’re encouraging states to consider adopting for purposes of helping counselors advance their professional careers,” says Rosenberry.

“The model they’re talking about starts with counselors who perform at the high school or GED level; the next level would be those with Associates degrees; then a Bachelors level and a Masters level. While we don’t have licensure in New York State, many states do, and SAMHSA is advocating that there also be a licensed level at the top which will allow counselors to perform as independent practitioners.”

Although Rosenberry doesn’t cite any specific monetary amounts, the implication is that substance abuse counseling might well be on the way to losing its rep as a livelihood that pays chump change.

Even with all its current disincentives, we’re talking about a bona fide growth field. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 21 percent growth in substance abuse and behavioral health counseling careers by the year 2018. Which means, if you want one, the jobs are there.

Although anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more people who are not in recovery are becoming counselors, it’s likely the field will continue to attract as many newly clean and sober individuals as it always has. If you are in recovery, CASAC Carrin Hare, who has been a counselor for almost 20 years, says it’s a good idea to wait a while — say, a few years — before signing up for CASAC training school.

“Like today, when I came into the field, many of those early in recovery were on a pink cloud and wanted to become counselors,” says Hare. “Unlike today, they were discouraged from doing so. Six months dry and a few NA key chains does not begin to prepare one for becoming a counselor.”

Tom Sinclair is a Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor. He would like to decree an across-the-board salary increase of $10,000 for all CASACs.