Substance abuse counseling is a very human and deeply personal field of practice. You will find, time after time, that the big breakthroughs come through making human connections with people whose humanity has been worn thin by the disease of addiction. When all hope seems lost, it’s that bond between people that brings them back.
So artificial intelligence isn’t something you probably give much thought to in your investigations into how to become a SUD (Substance Use Disorder) counselor. You are probably imagining most of your interaction with technology being a word processor for writing reports or a clunky state reporting and record-keeping system.
But it turns out there are actually many parts of the addiction treatment process that technology can improve.
In fact, it’s happening already.
New technology breakthroughs won’t replace addiction counselors, but they can make the job more efficient and more effective.
Like Other Industries, Technology in Substance Abuse Counseling Comes in Through the Back Door
Many SUD therapists are starting to run across high-tech solutions to addiction problems in their daily practice. In some cases, clients come in the door having already tried some independent app that by itself didn’t help them get clean. In others, therapists themselves are starting to experiment with some of the off-the-shelf systems that are popping up to provide innovative treatment aids.
It’s a solid bet that within a decade, more substance abuse counselors than not will be using these kinds of technologies. And newer and even more exciting developments are in the pipeline.
If you recognize that substance abuse counseling is falling way behind the actual demand for therapy, you can look forward to technology as a way to help catch up.
Rather than threatening substance use disorder counseling jobs, though, these tools represent an important way to both leverage the time of counselors who are spread too thin, and populations that otherwise aren’t easy to connect with.
How Traditional Therapy Practices Can Be Enhanced by Technology
Addiction counselors across the country rely every day on evidence-based treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and on other related techniques for reinforcement and contingency management.
While effective, these techniques are not mysterious. They rely on provoking thought and providing motivation when it’s needed. With no disrespect to the professional behavioral and substance abuse counselors who use these techniques, the concepts themselves don’t even take particularly advanced artificial intelligence to implement.
This makes it relatively easy to put together apps that offer up some of the basics of what a trained addiction therapist provides:
- Educational skill development
- Instant lookup and reminders of hazards and dangers of using various illicit substances
- Building refusal skills
- Family and social relationships
- Developing daily plans
- Delivering therapeutic feedback
- Managing and reducing harmful thoughts
- Promoting progressive muscle relaxation
- Motivational prompting
Such applications are already very well-known in the field today, with some of the most popular names being:
- AA Big Book Free
- Pear reSET-O
- SoberGrid
- I Am Sober
- WorkitHealth
- Recovery Box
- Nomo
- Ria Health
- SoberTool
- Quitzilla
- Recovery Path
- Sunnyside
- Smart Recovery
- WeConnect
- Recovery.com
And as you would imagine, the combination of AI and new ways of collating data are super-charging the impact of these and other already-popular technologies.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Bring Nuance To App-Assisted Therapy
That’s because artificial intelligence today feeds on data. The more information can be thrown into the maw of machine learning algorithms, the better their analysis becomes.
That’s already proven useful in everything from weather forecasting to retail sales. In the drug and alcohol abuse treatment world, it’s being applied in two ways:
- Population-level Research - Feeding statistical data on lifestyles, substance use, health information, and more into sophisticated AI models is being used to detect the potential for early onset substance use disorders, the factors that lead some people to develop co-occuring disorders, and how environmental mitigations can work to reduce substance abuse in communities.
- Individual Predictions and Guidance - That same power can be used, after training on larger groups, to help guide individual therapy programs. For example, researchers have been able to predict from AI-analysis of social media posts which patients in outpatient treatment programs are unlikely to complete their course of therapy. Counselors equipped with that information can then guide those patients to more appropriate and effective therapies.
With both AI and its applications in behavioral therapy still in their infancy, there is a lot of room for other improvements in the kind of information that counselors get to work with. But there is one other major trend in technology that is about to unlock even more powerful insights in addiction treatment.
The Ultimate in Feedback: Wearable Devices Delivering Patient Health Data Directly to Substance Abuse Counselors
That trend is in the sudden widespread availability of small, smart wearable health and behavior monitors.
This is a field that has been fueled by the constantly shrinking chip and sensor field, and the continually improving state of battery technology.
The combination of improvements in those technologies has lead to smaller, lighter, and smarter wearable devices with the ability to assess and respond in real-time to physiological states of the wearer. Think Apple Watch pulse and ECG readings or continuous glucose monitors that sample blood sugar levels.
Ignition interlock systems that require a clear breath sample before allowing a car to start are an early example of portable technology that has made a real difference in alcohol abuse and impaired driving treatment.
The impact of different substances on those readings offers a fingerprint, one that can be used to provide real-time feedback and inject honesty and clarity into the therapy process.
Such devices also offer important environmental data that can help in substance use disorder treatment. Location-based tracking easily reveals if patients have been spending time at bars, taking smoke breaks, or hanging around in areas known for illicit drug sales.
It’s all information that therapists can put to good use when building recovery plans. The average substance abuse counselor has only a tiny window of their client’s day to make assessments and analyze disorders. And it’s no secret that many clients, particularly early in the process, are less than entirely honest about their activities outside the office.
Wearables don’t lie, and they can keep watch 24/7 over where the patient is and what their physiological state is. It’s information that every therapist wishes they had—and now they can.
Big Trends in AI and Wearables Will Supercharge Substance Use Disorder Treatment Techniques
The real magic happens when all of these tools and techniques are put together.
With apps being fed by health and behavioral data, all tuned to individual substance use disorders symptoms and patterns with input from a qualified and credentialed SUD counselor, crisis prediction and intervention can happen in an instant.
Perhaps, in a moment of weakness, a patient pauses outside a neighborhood bar. Their watch notices; it tips off an app on their phone, which chimes an alert—a simple reminder prompt or affirmation designed to help them move on. The event may be logged and floated to the attention of their counselor, who can bring it up at their next appointment and further reinforce the behavior and affirm their decision made in the moment.
More dramatic interventions are also in the cards. In the same way that some smart watches have crash detection that can immediately alert EMS in case the wearer has been in an accident, devices tracking health data may be trained to detect the terrifying onset of an overdose.
SUD treatment pros know that more than half of overdose deaths happen simply because no one is nearby to witness them. That’s particularly tragic in the case of opioids, because rapid intervention with Narcan can easily reverse the effects.
But if a wearable can be taught to contact EMS just as quickly as it can in a crash, medics can arrive in time to save the patient, even if no one else is around.
The possibilities for tailoring these kinds of reminders, or for alerting counselors to issues they otherwise would never have known about, are almost endless. And they are endlessly personal, preserving that critical element of individual attention that every patient needs.
Addiction Counselors Will Have To Be Wary While the App Environment Matures
The bad news about app and AI-based interventions in SUD is that they are affected by the same gold-rush mentality as any other new AI-related trend. That has led to hundreds of apps being rushed to market that claim to treat addictions, few of which were built with any professional oversight or research from actual SUD treatment professionals.
While the attention to such a critical issue as substance abuse is welcome, half-baked solutions are worse than nothing. Many patients today may be motivated to try to self-treat their disorder with an easy app download.
But as every SUD counselor and recovered patient knows, there’s nothing easy about recovery from an addiction. Even with the best technology, it’s going to require hard work from both counselor and client. For the near future, at least, some part of that work will be evaluating various addiction counseling apps on the market and making sure patients are only using those that really help.
The Possibilities for the Future of Technology in Substance Abuse Therapy Are Amazing
The technical advances that have led to the state-of-the-art today are still rolling. Impacts on substance abuse therapies will come indirectly as well as directly. Many of the potential applications for AI in healthcare, for instance, will improve treatment for SUD patients as well.
AI is being developed to help manage clinical trials for new medical therapies for addiction, which may lead to faster and more effective roll-outs of new clinical treatments for substance use disorders.
The kind of talk-based therapy that forms the kernel of CBT and similar treatments may also get a boost from AI chatbots. While they can’t replace therapists, researchers are looking into the idea that they may be able to help keep people engaged in therapy in the first place, as with this study on using chatbots for patients with methamphetamine addiction disorders.
Of course, one of the magical things about the pace of technological change is that not even futurists can see around the corner. The most impressive solutions to substance use disorders may come from entirely unexpected directions. So it will be important for substance abuse counselors to stay tuned-in to the latest developments in the field.