Minimum Degree Requirements to Become a Substance Abuse Counselor

Maybe you’re a recent high school or GED grad figuring out what you want to do in life. Maybe life took some turns, and high school is a distant memory, but you’re ready to get a serious career off the ground now. Whatever your story is, there’s a path to becoming a substance use disorder counselor that doesn’t require a long and expensive college education.

Choosing a career that revolves around helping people beat chemical dependency problems is a path that takes a lot of commitment and a lot of heart. People closest to it contend with a difficult truth: you can’t really beat an addiction entirely. But what you can do is beat it back and get it under control.

There’s nothing easy about the work, either for the patients or their counselors. But at the end of the week, after doing something powerfully worthwhile out in the world, you’ll come away with a peaceful easy feeling. What other job comes with knowing you’re helping people get their lives, their families, and their dignity back.

So many of the people drawn to this profession come to it with intensely personal reasons. Maybe they’ve experienced substance use problems themselves. Maybe they’ve watched friends or loved ones disappear into that dark place—or maybe they have helped others back out of that pit.

To get a job in substance abuse counseling, though, you need a license. And licensing in every state requires a specific combination of experience and at least some education, capped-off with an exam.

But there are ways to make your way into the field while keeping that lengthy process down to a minimum when it comes to the college education you need.

Why Meeting Minimum Education Requirements is the Smartest Path to Becoming an Addiction Therapist

There are a few reasons why the path with the fewest college education requirements is the one you should take.

It’s the natural path if you haven’t already gone to college and earned a degree. Taking the shortest path into the profession is just practical if you’re just getting started in the field. That’s true whether you’re fresh out of high school or a GED program, or making the decision much later in life. If you don’t already have some job experience and college education in a human services field, meeting minimum requirements just makes sense.
Then there is simple socioeconomics. substance abuse hits populations and communities with the least wealth the hardest. So if you’ve been touched by the horrors of dependency, there’s a good chance that you’re not coming to college with a silver spoon in your mouth. It may be a stretch financially to even get a certificate or a two-year associate degree, let alone the more common bachelor’s degree.
It’s also a matter of urgency. If you’ve experienced first-hand the nightmare of substance use disorders, you’re likely very aware of the sense that the clock is ticking. People are dying every day… more than 106,000 drug overdoese deaths were recorded in 2021 alone according to CDC data. And that’s before you start the clicker on the collateral damage, like 13,000 alcohol-related traffic deaths or decades of lives shortened by tobacco dependency.

Every minute spent in a classroom is a minute you’re not out on the streets saving lives.

Although there are many advantages to taking your education in psychology, pharmacology, and therapy further by earning a higher degree, it’s entirely understandable if you want to dig in to the practical side of the business sooner than later.

The Different Titles and Evolving Language in Substance Use Disorder Counseling

You’ll probably notice right away that the positions you are aiming at come with a lot of title variations:

Clinical Addiction Specialist
Alcohol & Drug Counselor
Certified Addiction Counselor
Substance Abuse Counselor
Chemical Dependency Counselor

The same is true of the degree and certificate programs you will pursue to land those jobs.

As substance use treatment has evolved, so has the thinking about how providers and society approaches it. There’s a big movement within the profession toward language that focuses on substance use as the public health crisis it is, rather than an individual moral failing.

So you’ll see a shift toward titles and terms like use rather than abuse, and patient rather than addict. And of course a word like substances covers more ground than just alcohol & drugs.

The most contemporary term for the job you are going to be performing is substance use disorder counselor. But that may not end up on your name tag for a few years.

It takes a while for trends to turn around, so you will get a lot of mixed messages for a while. And the language used on the streets will evolve at its own pace and for different reasons. But as someone entering the profession today, you’ll be responsible for setting a more empathetic and inclusive tone going forward.

Just 4 Steps To Meeting the Minimum Requirements to Become a Substance Use Disorder Counselor

There’s plenty of opportunities to earn a higher degree and more advanced credentials later on. This guide is here to get you started.

The process for getting started as an addiction counselor with the minimum degree may be a little faster than the alternatives, but it takes just as many steps to get there.

Although we’ll lay them all out for you here in detail and in order, you already know that life doesn’t always line-up perfectly with the plans you make. You may approach some of these steps from a slightly different angle depending on your background, your state licensing regulations, and other obligations that come up in your life at any point in the process. We know how it goes. We’re here to help you get to the finish-line no matter what, with your credentials in hand so you can start making a real impact.

These steps are your best bet to clear the minimum education requirements to get licensed as a SUD counselor.

Step 1. Meet Your State’s Minimum Education Requirements for Certification/Licensure in Addiction Counseling

You can learn a lot on the streets, but science has a few things to say about addiction and recovery, too. It’s really when you put those two kinds of knowledge together that you get the most formidable and effective SUD counselors.

Although some states do not technically require a college degree for licensure, you still need a certain number of college education hours. You can complete those hours through a certificate program offered by community colleges, vocation schools, or even state-sponsored programs in some states.

So even a little bit of college-level education can go a long way in becoming an addiction counselor. How much exactly is a question of which state you plan to practice in.

The Minimum Degree Level Will Vary Between States and License Types

Here you can see the minimum education requirements in your state, and the specific license title you can earn with it:

State	Titles	Level of Education
Alaska	Chemical Dependency Counselor I/Chemical Dependency Counselor II	None Specified (Training course, no degree required)
Alabama	Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Arkansas	Licensed Associate Substance Abuse Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Arizona	Licensed Associate Substance Abuse Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
California	Certified Alcohol Drug Counselor I	Associate Degree
Colorado	Certified Addiction Counselor II	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Connecticut	Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor	None Specified (Training course, no degree required)
Washington DC	Certified Addiction Counselor I	Associate Degree
Delaware	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Associate Degree
Florida	Certified Addiction Professional	Bachelor’s Degree
Georgia	Certified Addiction Counselor I	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Hawaii	Certified Substance Abuse Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Iowa	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Idaho	Certified Alcohol-Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Illinois	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Indiana	Licensed Addiction Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Kansas	Licensed Addiction Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Kentucky	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Louisiana	Certified Addiction Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Massachusetts	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Maryland	Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Maine	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor/Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor/Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor II	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Michigan	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Minnesota	Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Missouri	Addiction Counselor II/Addiction Counselor III/Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Mississippi	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor I	Bachelor’s Degree
Montana	Licensed Addiction Counselor	Associate Degree
North Carolina	Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
North Dakota	Licensed Addiction Counselor/Licensed Clinical Addiction Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Nebraska	Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
New Hampshire	Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Associate Degree
New Jersey	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
New Mexico	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Nevada	Certified Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
New York	Credentialed Alcoholism & Substance Abuse Counselor II	Associate Degree
Ohio	Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor II	Associate Degree
Oklahoma	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Oregon	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor I	Associate Degree
Pennsylvania	Certified Associate Addiction Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Rhode Island	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor/Licensed Chemical Dependency Professional	High School (Training course, no degree required)
South Carolina	Certified Addictions Counselor I/Certified Addictions Counselor II	Bachelor’s/Bachelor’s
South Dakota	Certified Addiction Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Tennessee	Level I Licensed Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Texas	Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Counselor/Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor	High School High School (Training course, no degree required)/Associate
Utah	Substance Use Disorder Counselor	Associate Degree
Virginia	Certified Substance Abuse Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Vermont	Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor	Bachelor’s Degree
Washington	Substance Use Disorder Professional	Associate Degree
Wisconsin	Substance Abuse Counselor/Clinical Substance Abuse Counselor	None Specified (Training course, no degree required)/Associate Degree
West Virginia	Alcohol & Drug Counselor	High School (Training course, no degree required)
Wyoming	Certified Addictions Practitioner	Bachelor’s Degree

Higher license levels can be earned with higher degrees in most states, but this shows the minimum to get started.

For states that offer associate or candidate level licenses, you can often get by with only a two-year associate degree in addiction therapy or a similar degree. The program must have somewhere in the vicinity of 200-300 hours of education specific to substance use disorders; in some cases, degrees in related fields, like human services or counseling may meet the requirement.

In certain states, a provisional or candidate-level license is non-renewable, intended only for a year or two while you gain full counseling qualifications—in these states you’ll ultimately need to move up to a bachelor’s to retain licensure.

In most cases you will have to earn a four-year bachelor’s degree in substance abuse counseling or a closely related field for full SUD counselor licensure. But a handful of states will also accept an associate degree to get you to that level. Often, however, you’ll face steeper requirements for experiential hours with the lower degree.

Regardless of degree or degree level, your studies will have to include a set number of educational hours specific to substance use disorders. Anywhere from 70 to more than 300 are required. In some cases, however, holding a degree will reduce the required number.

Even if you already hold a degree in another field, there’s a good chance you haven’t accumulated the right amount of hours in SUD studies. This is exactly the situation a certificate or diploma program in addiction therapy is designed to cover. These programs cover SUD-specific training without all the additional liberal arts coursework that comes with a full associate and bachelor degrees. As long as your degree is in a relatively similar field, these can get you the qualifications you need.

Step 2. There’s Nothing Minimal About the First-Hand Experience and Guidance You’ll Get in Addiction Counseling

While you may be coming to this path with some hard-won experience already, there are requirements in each state for building up documented, supervised practice hours.

Better than anyone, you can probably appreciate the need for practical experience on top of classroom eduction in addiction therapy. All that theory is valuable. But seeing how it plays out in the real world is what you need to be effective.

First-hand experience is critical in developing the proper counseling skills to treat substance use disorders.

Having seen someone close to you go through substance use issues and recovery, or even having gone through it yourself is a powerful learning experience. But it takes more than that to become an effective counselor. Addressing those issues as a professional counselor requires detachment and composure. And that’s what you will learn through internships or practicums at rehab facilities or agencies.

You most often get your start building those hours as a part of your college studies. Naturally, this is going to be shortened the more minimal your degree program is. So you’ll need to find other ways to make up any hours you’re missing.

In other cases, you may find paid positions with agencies which will allow you to build supervised hours on the job as you work toward becoming licensed/certified so you can qualify for a regular SUD counseling position. Some states have provisional or temporary licenses that you’ll need to hold while getting your on-the-job experience.

The number of clinical practice hours can range anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 depending on the state. Supervised hours required often run between 100 and 500. But this is also an area where a college education actually moves you more quickly toward licensure.

In many states, the higher the degree you have the lower the number of experience hours you’re required to have. Although going for the minimum education level may mean it takes longer overall to get your certification/license, you’ll be on the job getting paid during that time.

Step 3. The Standardized Entry-Level Exam Confirms You Have the Knowledge You Need for the Job

While you will be evaluated and rated by supervisors as you build practical experience, that’s not enough to get licensed. Each state also has a formal examination that you’ll have to pass to become a SUD counselor at any level.

These aren’t the kind of tests you just breeze through, either. You may find yourself sweating mid-test, wishing you had already gone on and earned a higher level degree! Around 30 percent of test takers end up failing the standard Alcohol & Drug Counselor (ADC) exam.

If anything, the standard counseling exams for licensure take on even more importance for individuals with lower levels of college education.

So you definitely need to reckon with the reality that you’ll have less formal preparation for these tests than someone with a higher level degree. That means you’ll need a strong commitment and self-discipline to study on your own and nail the exam.

There are two major national organizations that provide testing that covers most of the states:

Both exams are multiple choice and around 150 questions. They cover material such as:

Pharmacology and the physiological effects of various substances
Clinical assessment and diagnosis
Treatment planning
Therapy standards and practices
Professional and ethical obligations in SUD practice

Which test you take depends on which are accepted by the state in which you are being licensed. In every case, you’ll need to receive approval from the relevant licensing agency or certification board before you are allowed to register for the test.

Even those states that have developed their own exams generally align fairly closely with the standards that NAADAC and IC&RC test to, so you’ll basically be going over the same territory no matter what.

In some states, a jurisprudence exam is also required. These are shorter exams that are designed to test your understanding of state laws and regulations covering substance use disorder counseling.

Step 4. Become Licensed or Certified as a Substance Use Disorder Counselor in Your State

This is where you get the juice out of all your hard work in class and on the streets: a valid license or certification to work as a substance use disorder counselor in your state.

As you know, these are critical positions working with sensitive populations. So it’s absolutely necessary to have official oversight in counseling work, even at low levels.

A license or certification is necessary to deliver services in addiction counseling in every state.

In More than Half of All States, an Associate Degree is All You Need for Full SUD Counselor Certification

Substance use disorder counseling is a field where license levels and requirements can be wildly different from state to state.

In an effort to be able to speak to requirements in more general terms, SAMHSA (the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), created six different license level categories that state licenses can be organized into. For example:

An associate degree lines up with SAMHSA’s category 1 standard, Associate SUD Counselor
A bachelor’s lines up with SAMHSA’s category 2, or SUD Counselor

But state implementations don’t exactly match those standards in every case. For some states, you may need a bachelor’s just to earn an associate license… but in more than half the states, an associate degree is all it takes to become a full category 2 SUD Counselor:

Alaska
Arkansas
Washington DC
Delaware
Georgia
Iowa
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Massachusetts
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri

North Carolina
Nebraska
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Wisconsin
West Virginia

In general, you can expect a minimal education level to open up license options that allow plenty of direct patient contact, but only under the general supervision of a more highly educated counselor.

You’ll need to check carefully to see what the requirements are in your state. See our comprehensive state-by-state licensing guides to learn more:

Meeting Minimum Education Requirements Can Still Still Lead to Having Maximum Impact As a Substance Use Disorder Counselor

Like so many people who come into the field of substance abuse counseling, you have already been touched by some aspect of the work. Maybe that’s experience with a particular substance, or a strong connection with a particular population, like veterans or teens. Or maybe you’ve seen positive outcomes from certain kinds of treatments, like behavioral therapy.

So you might already have a good idea what your focus will be as an addiction counselor.

Substance Use Disorder Technician Careers Offer an Even More Minimal Path to Addiction Treatment Work

A few states have a category of SUD licensing that has even more minimal education requirements: substance use disorder technicians.

Frequently called aides, interns, assistants, or addiction recovery technicians, these roles only function under close supervision. They only require a high school diploma or GED, along with a specialized course of training running from three hours to over three hundred depending on the state.

In some cases, passing an examination is also required, but usually one far less rigorous than the standard counseling exams.

That’s in keeping with much less intense duties. A recovery technician is only responsible for implementing treatment plans under close supervision. They may engage in hands-on crisis intervention, administering pharmaceutical therapies, or offering behavioral reinforcements as needed.

It takes just as much heart and commitment to work as a SUD tech, but doesn’t offer nearly the opportunities for making a difference as becoming a full addiction counselor.

See how to become a SUD technician or peer counselor in our guide to substance abuse careers that don’t require a degree.

It’s fairly easy to line up the kind of on-the-job experience you got while gaining your practice hours with job prospects.

Since you’re starting with a niche in mind, you’ll probably naturally gravitate toward coursework, internships, and training that build your skills in that area. In fact, it’s very likely you’ll simply be continuing with the same employer after becoming licensed, and even working with the same patients.

Jobs follow specialized skills. There are a wide range of agencies and positions taking on every aspect of substance abuse in the country today. You could find a role:

Working with veterans doing outreach on the streets and connecting them with resources to get housed and get clean all at the same time
Performing screening and preventative counseling in schools, working with kids before they get hooked
Managing a recovery house, developing relationships with a small number of patients at a time and doing all you can to ease their transition

Jobs come up in clinics, hospitals, at social services agencies, or in many different types of nonprofits performing vital human services work. They exist in the suburbs and rural areas as much as they do deep in the city.

Drawing on Both Education and Experience To Get the Job Done in Substance Abuse Counseling

The work that licensed SUD counselors do will draw on both your education and experience.

Given personal experience in handling addiction, the interpersonal part of the job may come easy to you. Intervention and counseling work often involves face-to-face and empathetic connections that no college degree can teach. Assessment of both substance use issues and the resulting fallout in lives and relationships may be pretty much second nature.

But you’ll find even the most basic college education useful when it comes to the more technical and formal tasks the job requires. Treatment planning takes a knowledge of the progression of addiction, the latest therapy techniques, and up-to-date information about resource availability. It helps to have a good relationship with people at human services agencies and facilities when making referrals

And finally, every human services gig comes with a pile of paperwork and compliance that have to be taken care of. You’ll be thankful you had to pass English 101 when you confront all the forms to be filled out and reports to be written as a SUD counselor.

Continuing Education Requirements Give You a Chance to Build on Your Minimum Education with an Advanced Degree in Addiction Counseling

Even if you end up feeling that your minimum degree gave you enough tools to get started in SUD counseling, your education won’t stop there. Every state requires continuing education hours as a part of retaining SUD counselor licenses.

That typically means somewhere between 20 and 40 hours per year of additional study or activities that keep your skillset current. You can fulfill CE requirements through a variety of activities:

But the most common way to cover CE requirements are by attending training classes offered by recognized providers. Each state or licensing board will typically have a list of pre-approved providers. Some national organizations, like NAADAC, have online training courses that are accepted by just about everyone.

Since credits accumulated toward a degree also count toward your continuing education, it’s an easy way to take care of that requirement.

Of course, one other option that counts for CE is actual college credits. Coursework toward a higher degree level can both keep your license current, and move you toward a job with more responsibility and higher salaries. And that’s just one reason you may find yourself considering moving up from the minimums sooner than you think.

If You’re a Good Counselor, You Owe It to Everyone To Continue Advancing in Your Profession

Just because you are coming into addiction counseling at the entry-level, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a bright future ahead of you. The career ladder in SUD counseling is a tall one, and you can keep climbing it even after you get your initial license.

If a bachelor’s degree wasn’t already the minimum requirement in your state, that’s your next natural stop for education. On top of qualifying you for higher credentials in substance abuse counseling, and unlocking opportunities where you can be more influential and have a greater impact, it’s also one of the requirements for one of the most popular national certifications for addiction counselors: NAADAC’s NCAC II, or National Certified Addiction Counselor, Level II.

NAADAC also offers specialized credentials in areas like adolescent addiction counseling.

National certification brings recognition and respect to your counseling practice. It makes transferring to other states easier if you choose to do so, and may open up new jobs and higher salaries.

On top of the degree, you’ll need a few other qualifications:

A current credential in the field of substance use disorder counseling
A least three years of full-time supervised experience
At least 450 contact hours of education and training in the field, including six hours each in ethics and HIV/pathogen training
A passing score on either the NCAC II or IC&RC’s AADC (Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor) exam

Even if it seems out of reach at first, there’s not really any reason to stop at the NCAC, either. With another two years of study and a master’s degree, you can become eligible for the MAC, or Master Addiction Counselor certification.

That’s also a path that opens up credentials for independent practice as an addiction counselor, or even supervisory roles.

These may be the best reasons why earning a minimal degree to get started in substance use disorder counseling represents the perfect entry-point. You will always have the opportunity to climb higher and get more education. Along the way, you’ll change a lot of lives and do a lot of good in the world. There’s no reason not to start now.