Question by Dan W: Can i become a councilor with a GED?
Well i am wondering if you can become a councilor for drug abuse if you only have a GED, because i was addicted to methamphetamine, marijuana, inhalants, and alcohol for about five years of my life and luckily i got myself help and have been clean for about 2 years now and i would really like to help people overcome the demons i also faced trying to become clean, any help would be wonderful. Thanks for any feed back.

Best answer:

Answer by jannsody
Congratulations on having almost two years of sobriety! With regard to becoming a substance abuse counselor, I believe that most with a Certified Addiction Counselor (CAC) have a master’s degree which takes about six years of college, if attending on a full-time basis. There are different levels of training for addictions counseling, but most jobs prefer those with a master’s degree.

Please also be aware that in order to get one’s certification as a CAC (or similar credentials), the person needs A LOT of clinical experience which includes having an actual patient caseload of those with addiction.

With regard to schooling, please AVOID those private overly priced For-profit schools such as kaplan, ashworth, capella, university of phoenix, devry, ITT tech, strayer, everest, brown mackie, american public university, keiser, argosy, penn foster, ashford, grand canyon, westwood, stratford career, pima medical institute, colorado tech and others as they are merely out to “make a profit” (** and their course credits usually do NOT transfer to other schools).

These consumer sites have a lot of negative posts by former students about those for-profit schools, and please heed the students’ warnings:

– http://www.ripoffreport.com

– http://www.pissedconsumer.com

– http://www.complaintsboard.com and can search.

Please instead consider the more affordable community college and/or public/state university as long as the program is accredited within the industry.

For U.S. colleges: http://www.utexas.edu/world/univ

This site is supposed to have more info re: (regarding) getting certified in addictions counseling: http://www.naadac.org/certification and can scroll down a bit.

General career info: http://www.bls.gov/oco and can search “counselors”, “social workers” or such.

Regarding inhalants or “huffing” (fumes or chemical vapors), my friend actually has a Brain Injury from inhalant use at the age of 12, now in her 30s.

Other risks of huffing include sight loss/blindness, heart/liver/kidney damage, seizures, limb spasms, hearing loss and even death, all of which can happen after the very FIRST time of use.

For anyone, this site has more info about the dangers of huffing – National Inhalant Prevention Coalition: http://www.inhalants.org

Wishing you continued recovery and wellness and that you continue making good, HEALTHY choices in life 🙂

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