Giving Back as an Addiction Counselor

As someone in recovery myself, working at a treatment center as an addiction counselor has been a pretty beautiful experience. It can be difficult seeing new clients come in sometimes because their brokenness reminds me so much of myself when I first entered treatment, but one of my favorite parts of this job is seeing how so many of them transform throughout their 45 days in the program.

Part of my job revolves around initial biopsychosocial assessments: gathering all of a client’s background information when they first enter. That’s my biggest opportunity to see where they’ve come from and where they’re starting off with their recovery. Another big focus of my job is facilitating groups for clients. The goal with groups is to educate the clients, facilitate discussion, and provide them with as many tools as possible for them to use in their recovery.

We are a dual-diagnosis treatment center, so even though we focus mainly on addiction, there is a lot of overlap with mental health. Many of the coping skills we provide to clients can ideally be applied to mental health issues as well. We try to design a lot of our groups with that in mind. A lot of our staff members are in recovery themselves, which is wonderful because so many of us vividly understand where our clients are coming from.

Most of our curriculum focuses on what to expect in early recovery, what defense mechanisms look like and how to overcome them, gaining a better understanding of addiction as a disease, understanding how mental health is tied in, developing a support system, and relapse prevention. Another counselor I work with likes to say that 45 days in this treatment center isn’t going to cure anyone, but hopefully our clients will leave with a better understanding of addiction and what they can do about it. We aim to help them develop healthier habits and find healthier coping skills. The hope is that the treatment center itself may become a tool to help them on their journey of recovery.