Substance abuse is also well-known to you as drug abuse which refers to the harmful habitual use of psychoactive substances like alcohol illicit drugs, tobacco, etc.

The drug intake is both legal and illegal, the chemicals in them affect your body and mind works simultaneously. Many abuser thinks that they give you a number of positive sides by giving you a feeling of pleasurable “high” making you feel relaxed, help you avoid your problem and change mood too, which however become abuse when you use a substance repeatedly not prescribed or recommended ultimately becomes very hazardous causing severe impairment to its users.

When an abuser wants to quit this addiction then there comes the role of Substance Abuse Counselor starts.

A substance abuse counselor works by evaluating a client’s mental and physical health and behavior which help while they are getting ready for their treatment they work on their alertness helps in developing skills and enforce positive behavior which is necessary to overcome their abuse. They give a type of counseling that can help people recover and conquer their dependencies on substances.

Substance abuse counselor knows how to treat their each client as an individual as history of every person is different, personality traits, what type of abuse they intake and also the patterns followed so they have to be treated carefully and this help in making personalized treatment plan for client based on a range of factors influencing individual or group therapies.

While interviewing a patient the counselor gets an idea about the physical and behavioral action. They also help clients to identify their “triggers”, that are mainly a few situations that make people want to consume alcohol, intake drugs. The triggers are different for every individual as few may drink when they are stressed while others drink with a certain group of people. Once they discovered these triggers, they both can work on ways to avoid them.

Now, you may want to know how can you become a substance abuse counselor for that :

1. You will need to get a bachelor’s degree in addiction studies, behavioral, social science or psychology field.
2. You must earn a master’s degree to be licensure counselors to work as a professional in abuse and addiction counseling, which is a must in many countries and states.
3. Pursuing an internship will always help you to improve your skills.
4. Taking exams standardized by boards of different states. Some exams which you have to pass are the National Counselor Examination and National Clinical Mental Health Counselling Examination.

These exams come under the IC&RC International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium different for all countries. If you are eligible to give this exam you need to prepare hard enough. So, you have come to the right place where you can get everything. This IC&RC exam study guide is one of your best testing resources which will help you in every way to pass and become an excellent substance abuse counselor.