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Working in the Addiction Field
Why being a Substance Use Disorder counselor is meaningful.
Recently, I was hired to work as an addiction counselor for substance use disorders. The official title is Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor (CADC) intern, or a Substance Use Disorder counselor (SUD). I wanted to explain why this is a meaningful field to work in.
When looking at the statistics for substance abuse in the U.S., the numbers are significant, yet they don’t or can’t tell the entire story. These stats are gathered mostly from the self-disclosure of people being surveyed or screened/treated for substance abuse; this means the stats exclude people not screened or treated, and include people being dishonest about their answers.
A few interesting stats (U.S. population: 347 million):
- 29.8 million individuals have an Alcohol Use Disorder in the U.S (NCDAS, 2023).
- 134.3 million individuals have used alcohol within the last month (SAMHSA, 2024).
- 16.5% of Americans have taken mind-altering prescription drugs in the last year (CDC, 2020).
- 51.2% of people 12 and over have taken an illegal drug at least once (NCDAS, 2023).
Experientially, we can think about our personal lives and the number of people using legal or illegal substances around us. I would…
