Addiction Counselor Continuing Education Resources to Keep Your License Current and Your Skills Sharp

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Continuing education is a fact of life for licensed or certified substance use disorder (SUD) counselors in just about every state. You’ll need anywhere from 10 to 60 hours of training per renewal period (typically 1-2 years), depending on your location and the level of license you hold. Your state licensing or certification board requires evidence of the training and must approve it for you to maintain your license.

But continuing ed isn’t just about checking boxes. It’s about the constant evolution of addiction counseling in America. It’s about your drive to maintain and improve your professional skills. It’s about finding new techniques and information to help more people, more effectively.

Continuing education hours deserve to be taken seriously by every substance use disorder counselor at every level.

To help you understand the options and strike a balance between time, cost, and high-quality training, we’ve compiled this comprehensive guide to substance abuse counseling continuing education resources nationwide.

Ensuring Your Education Hours Count Toward License Renewal

Not everything advertised as continuing education is necessarily right for your license renewal. The ultimate resource is your state board or licensing agency, most of which offer their own lists of approved providers. While they may accept high-quality training from options that aren’t pre-approved, you can save yourself trouble by checking before you sign up for a class.

Many states have specific requirements for the kinds of CEUs you must turn in during your licensing period. For example, California requires 50 hours of continuing education every two years for specific credentials, with a minimum of 6 hours (or 9 hours for certain credential levels) in ethics education. Other states require cultural competency training or specific substance-focused content.

In general, license agencies or certification boards look for specific qualities in approved continuing education:

• Content must be directly related to or support common skills and knowledge required in substance use disorder counseling
• It must be offered by professionals who are qualified to teach the subject
• It should enhance your professional development and competency as a substance abuse counselor
• The provider should have appropriate accreditation or approval from recognized bodies
• Documentation must meet state requirements for proof of completion

You’ll probably want to apply your own standards when evaluating your various CE options. You should be building expertise in areas critical to your career and laying the groundwork for your next move. The proper continuing education gives you not only credits toward maintaining your license, but genuine knowledge and skill that help your clients and enhance your value as a counselor.

Classroom Instruction Isn’t the Only Kind of Continuing Education Activity

Not all continuing education comes through specific classes designed for the purpose. Most licensing agencies or professional boards have a range of different experiences or activities you can count toward CE.

Those typically include:

• Credits for official college coursework, with specific conversion from semester credits to CEUs
• Teaching an academic program or continuing education course, Particular credits for publishing papers in a reputable industry journal
• Credit for published book reviews or abstracts
• Publishing your own book on substance abuse counseling topics, with credits awarded for chapters contributed to works with multiple authors.
• Presenting at an industry conference
• Attending industry conferences
• Supervision activities (in some states)
• Serving on professional boards or committees

Each of these has some translated values that convert the activity into a specific number of hours, which can be counted toward your requirements. That allows you to mix these types of activities with more typical kinds of CE coursework.

Some boards may limit the total number of hours you can claim through these kinds of alternate activities. This ensures you’ll pursue a range of different educational choices rather than focusing solely on research or attending conferences.

Online Continuing Education Is Fast Becoming the Standard for Substance Abuse Counselors Everywhere

While you’ll still find continuing education resources that involve driving across town and parking yourself in a community college classroom or conference space for an hour or two, most continuing education options today are delivered online.

This is a massive benefit for the same reason online college courses are. You can conveniently fit your CE coursework into your otherwise busy day, from any location, at any time. It also opens up your options for finding relevant courses. You’re not restricted to providers in your state, but can explore coursework from big national providers (assuming your state board approves them to provide CE).

Some CE providers are starting to provide their material in primarily audio format, so you can catch up with your course even while driving.

It makes it a snap to stream a webinar during your lunch hour or catch up on course notes after dinner. You don’t have to take time off work to attend a conference across town or carve out an evening for a workshop at the local community college.

Not everyone has a learning style that meshes well with online classes. And not all kinds of CE are a good fit for online formats. But it’s a valuable option for most counselors, and it’s increasingly the standard in the industry.

Professional Addiction Counseling Organizations Lead the Way on High-Quality Continuing Ed Options

Your first stop for continuing education resources will probably be the major professional organizations dedicated to representing the interests of addiction treatment professionals. These organizations set the standards for the field and offer some of the highest-quality training available.

NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals

NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals, offers the dedicated online NAADAC Education Center. From their platform, members have access to hundreds of hours of continuing education from a library that’s constantly expanding, featuring the state-of-the-art in substance use disorder treatment. Everything, from clinical skills to technology support, to professional self-care and wellness, is covered. You’ll even find dedicated sections for specialty education in areas like becoming a U.S. Department of Transportation Substance Abuse Professional or conducting substance abuse advocacy.

NAADAC also helps counselors get valid and useful CEUs through the NAADAC Approved Education Providers Program. Various public and private training organizations, employers, and even colleges can be included on the list by opening up their programs to evaluation by the National Certification Commission for Addiction Professionals. Each provider has been found to offer coursework relevant to professional addiction counseling practice, meeting both NAADAC standards and those of most state licensing or certification bodies.

Their online directory of approved providers allows for a quick, ZIP-code-based search, so you can line up courses near you that you can count on.

International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC)

The International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) is the other major professional organization for substance abuse counselors. While the IC&RC itself doesn’t coordinate or offer CEU training, the organization comprises member boards in most U.S. states and several Canadian provinces. Almost every one of those member boards puts together resources for members to earn CEU credits, all of which can be found in the IC&RC Board Directory.

IC&RC member boards often offer their own training programs, approve local providers, and coordinate regional conferences. This makes them an excellent resource for finding state-specific continuing education that you can be confident will count toward your license renewal.

Other Professional Organizations That Offer Continuing Education Resources Useful for SUD Counselors

NAADAC and IC&RC are the largest and most directly affiliated professional groups for substance use disorder counselors in the United States, but they’re not the only ones. There are non-profit groups that are either SUD-treatment adjacent that also offer continuing education opportunities, or that are smaller and more focused.

National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers

NAATP is a group for companies and non-profit service providers that work in direct SUD treatment, transportation, and aftercare. They primarily conduct research and policy advocacy for SUD treatment, but also offer clinical and operational resources. Among other things, they conduct an Addiction Leader Webinar Series with monthly trainings that offer CEUs. Attending their annual national conference may also be eligible for CE credits, depending on your state licensing board regulations.

National Association for Behavioral Healthcare

SUD counseling is one aspect of the larger system of behavioral healthcare in America. Therefore, it makes sense that the professional association focused on that larger mission would also serve as a resource for CEUs for addiction counselors. Webinars offered through their Education and Research Foundation may provide CEUs. Like NAATP, their annual meeting and various presentations available there may also be accepted as continuing education.

American Society of Addiction Medicine

As the title says, this is a group primarily for medical providers specialized in treating addictions. Certain master’s-qualified SUD counselors, or those with clinical licensure, may also qualify for membership. With it comes access to some of the highest-quality continuing education opportunities in addiction treatment available today. ASAM has a dedicated eLearning center that provides over 300 hours of accredited education, regardless of your location. Their annual conference offers extensive sessions in best practices and the latest research for you to study.

National Board for Certified Counselors

NBCC is the organization that covers a broader range of career and mental health counseling providers. Still, they also have their own Master Addiction Counselor credential, which is accepted for licensing requirements in many states. They offer a deep bench of resources for continuing education, with an accreditation process similar to NAADAC. You can count on their resources to provide high-quality content and accepted CEUs in most states.

American Counseling Association

Approved by NBCC and NAADAC, as well as a range of state-level boards, ACA offers both in-person events and online training sessions for CE credits. Strongly dedicated to professional development for counselors, courses range from video-based to webinars to text-based instruction, offering something for every learning style. The annual ACA Conference and Expo provides more opportunities for CE as well as networking.

There are many state or regional organizations also focused on addiction and behavioral health professionals along these same lines. Many of them sponsor or offer conferences or training sessions that can apply to your CEU requirements. Because they’re local, they’re frequently already on the approved lists for your state credentialing authority.

Big Government Agencies Support Continuing Education for Substance Abuse Counselors

Ultimately, the responsibility for dealing with America’s drug epidemic comes back to the American government. Agencies at all levels—federal, state, and local—have various responsibilities for assessing, planning, and managing responses to substance use disorders.

That includes training. Local government agencies may sponsor workshops for SUD counselors or distribute training material to help conduct such workshops. States sometimes have entire training programs. And, at the federal level, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and National Institute on Drug Abuse are constantly putting out resources for study and coordination in substance abuse treatment.

In many cases, these government training opportunities will come with valid continuing education hours toward your licensure renewal.

While the state and local resources will depend on where you’re practicing, you can tap into various federal efforts from agencies like SAMHSA and the CDC that are available nationwide to help substance abuse counselors stay sharp and on top of the latest developments.

Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network

SAMHSA’s ATTC is a multidisciplinary resource for professionals in addiction treatment and recovery, offering toolkits, multimedia presentations, webinars, print resources, and face-to-face training opportunities nationwide. With ten regional centers, you can locate both the most appropriate resources and accessible opportunities for in-person training. The network is also a valuable resource for identifying other local and regional training opportunities. Although it’s set up more for knowledge distribution than awarding CEU credits, credits are available for many of the courses and events offered.

National Institute on Drug Abuse CME/CE Activities

NIDA makes it easy to find their available resources that can be applied to continuing education hours, as well as linking out to high-quality resources from universities and professional associations that meet their standards. These resources primarily address the opioid crisis, but you may also find more general or adolescent-focused training materials here.

National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare

NCSACW is entirely focused on kids and substance abuse issues. As a joint project between the Administration for Children and Families and SAMHSA, the Center offers a range of tailored learning materials, including webinars and online tutorials that dive into the details of handling both kids using drugs directly and the risks they face from environmental and cultural substance use around them.

Providers Clinical Support System

PCSS is actually a collection of resources focused on different aspects of substance use disorders. One works primarily with colleges and universities, but the other two are aimed at medication use in the treatment of alcohol and opioid disorders. Both provide free training, guidance, and mentoring to multidisciplinary healthcare professionals working in those fields, and may be eligible for CE credits in your area.

Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Regional Centers

ROTA-R is not a single, unified federal resource for substance abuse training, but rather a SAMHSA initiative to push those resources out closer to the providers and counselors working on substance use disorders in rural communities. You’ll find links here to the ten regional centers. If there’s one in your area, it can offer education and guidance on high-quality training in this often-overlooked type of SUD treatment.

Private Providers of Continuing Education Are Devoted To Offering New Courses All the Time

With CEUs required to renew every type of SUD counseling license in every state, many counselors take numerous classes each year. That makes continuing education a business, and there’s no shortage of private, for-profit companies that offer professional training to help you click in those credits.

Some of these companies are dedicated to providing education in addiction counseling. In fact, some may offer certificates that cover the educational hour requirements for counseling credentials in certain states, as well as CEUs. Other companies have a broader focus, offering classes for healthcare professionals, behavioral health professionals, or those in mental health in general.

How to Choose Quality CEU Providers

The most critical consideration if you decide to take this route is quality. Not all continuing education is created equal. Here’s a framework for evaluating providers before you enroll:

Essential Quality Indicators

• Pre-approved by your state authority: This is your first and most important check. If they’re on your state’s approved list, you’re in good shape.
• Listed as an approved provider by national professional organizations: NAADAC, NBCC, IC&RC, and state-level boards
• Accredited to provide CEUs: Look for accreditation from recognized bodies in counseling or substance use disorder treatment
• Qualified instructors: Verify the credentials of the individuals conducting the training. They should have relevant degrees and current practice experience.
• Clear documentation:The  Provider should offer certificates of completion that meet your state’s requirements

Red Flags to Watch For

• No explicit approval or accreditation information
• Impossibly cheap rates with no explanation
• Vague course descriptions without learning objectives
• No instructor credentials listed
• Poor reviews or complaints from other counselors
• Pressure tactics or aggressive sales approaches
• Unclear refund or cancellation policies

Questions to Ask Before Enrolling

• Does my state board approve this provider?
• What format is the course (live webinar, self-paced online, in-person)?
• How long do I have to complete the course?
• What documentation will I receive upon completion?
• Is there a test or assessment required?
• What’s the refund policy if I am unable to complete the course?
• Can I preview course materials before purchasing?

CEU Provider Comparison

Here’s a comparison of major national CEU providers to help you evaluate your options. All providers listed have approval from at least one major credentialing organization; however, please verify approval with your specific state board before enrolling.

Other Notable Providers

These additional providers offer specialized formats or regional focus. Course counts and pricing reflect late 2024 information and should be verified:

• AAACEUs: Extensive catalog across case management, nursing, rehab, and social work
• Quantum United CEUs: NAADAC-approved, affordable online modules with state-by-state approval lists
• CEUnitsAtHome: NAADAC-approved, pay only when you pass the course
• At Health: Audio format courses for on-the-go learning, individual approvals listed
• CE-Credit.com: NAADAC and AAHCPAD approvals, state-by-state search
• Aspira Continuing Education: California and Oklahoma focus, niche specialization

A College Degree Can Cover Continuing Education Requirements and Take Your Career to the Next Level

You probably noticed above that college courses in substance abuse topics are often accepted for continuing education credits. Certification bodies don’t care whether you’re auditing that class as a one-time deal or as part of a full degree. But at some phases of your career, it makes a lot of sense to fill up your CE hours while pursuing a higher degree level in substance abuse counseling.

Climbing the career ladder is extremely common in substance abuse counseling. The structure of certification and licensing in most states allows you to become a substance abuse counselor with an undergraduate degree or even an undergraduate certificate.

But few counselors stop there. You’re likely to build on your initial credentials and experience with additional degrees, whether that’s a bachelor’s degree after earning a certificate in substance abuse counseling, or a complete master’s degree in substance use disorder counseling, addiction studies, or a similar concentration.

In either case, you’ll receive a double benefit from that extra education, as it’s almost always applicable to your ongoing continuing education requirements.

Most states offer a specific formula that translates actual college credits earned to equivalent continuing education units. Conversion rates vary by state, but typical formulas range from 10 to 15 CEU hours per semester credit hour. Check with your state board for exact conversion rates.

This is a great way to keep your skills up to date while advancing your career. Whether you’re at the top of your game or just starting, you’ll find that continuing education in some form or another can always make you sharper. And a sharper you means patients who get better faster.

Learn more about career advancement pathways in substance abuse counseling.

Frequently Asked Questions About Continuing Education for Substance Abuse Counselors

How many CEU hours do I need to renew my substance abuse counselor license?

CEU requirements vary significantly by state and credential level. Most states require between 10 and 60 hours per renewal period (typically 1-2 years). Entry-level credentials often require fewer hours (10-20), while advanced licenses may require 40-60 hours. Please check with your state licensing board for specific requirements.

Can I take CEUs from providers in other states?

Yes, in most cases. As long as your state board approves the provider or holds national accreditation from organizations like NAADAC or NBCC, you can typically take courses from out-of-state providers. Online courses make this especially convenient. Always verify with your state board before enrolling.

Do online CEUs count the same as in-person training?

In most states, yes. Online CEUs are widely accepted and count equally toward license renewal. Some states may limit the percentage of online credits you can claim, or require specific topics (like ethics) to be completed in person. Check your state’s particular regulations.

How much do CEUs typically cost?

Costs vary widely. Individual courses typically range from $5 to $20 per credit hour. Some providers offer annual subscriptions for unlimited access. Government agencies, such as SAMHSA and ATTC, often provide free training. Professional organization memberships may include discounted or free CEUs. Verify current pricing with providers as rates change.

What if my state doesn’t pre-approve a provider I want to use?

You can often petition your state board to accept credits from non-pre-approved providers. You’ll need to submit course information, instructor credentials, and learning objectives for review. This process takes time, so plan. Alternatively, stick with pre-approved providers to avoid complications.

Can college courses count as continuing education credits?

Yes. Most states accept college coursework toward CEU requirements, with formulas to convert semester credits to CEU hours. Conversion rates vary by state but typically range from 10 to 15 CEU hours per semester credit. This is an excellent way to pursue career advancement while meeting license renewal requirements.

Do I need ethics CEUs specifically?

Many states require a specific number of CEU hours in ethics education. Standard requirements range from 3 to 6 hours per renewal period, although some credentials may need more. Check your state’s requirements, as ethics courses often cost the same as other CEUs but fulfill this mandatory component.

What happens if I don’t complete my CEUs before my license expires?

Consequences vary by state but may include late fees, temporary license suspension, or requirements to retake certification exams. Most states offer grace periods or reinstatement processes. Contact your board immediately if you’re at risk of missing your deadline.

Can I carry over extra CEU hours to the next renewal period?

Some states allow this, but many don’t. Even when allowed, there are usually limits (such as 50% of the required hours). Don’t count on carryover. It’s best to track CEUs by renewal period and plan accordingly.

Are there free continuing education options?

Yes. Government agencies (SAMHSA, NIDA, ATTC Network) offer free webinars and training. Some professional organizations provide free CEUs to members. Conference attendance (if your employer covers the cost) can also offer CEUs. Free options are typically limited but can cover a portion of your requirements.

Dr. Emily R. Thornton, PhD, LCADC

Dr. Emily R. Thornton is a licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor with over 15 years of experience. Holding a PhD in Clinical Psychology, she specializes in adolescent addiction and trauma-informed care, contributing to research and education in the field.

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