I have many friends who struggle with addiction/substance abuse issues, including alcohol, crack cocaine and methadone. Can you please direct me towards your [AIM] course content that focuses on counseling these kinds of people? —A.S.

Certainly this is an important topic, as drug abuse and the proliferation of "recreational drugs" is affecting more and more people. Our Counseling & Psychology course introduces some of the issues, but little of the 15 hours is focused on addiction. The curriculum of AIM [the Athens Institute] is primarily biblical, not professional. I did record a short series with Steve Brand (a professional counselor) on addiction. It’s called Escape, and may prove informative, yet in no way would it qualify listeners to counsel addicts. You’re asking a question for the professionals!

In short, substance abuse isn't my area. AIM simply cannot make anyone competent to counsel drug addicts. However, I am grateful to my friend Dr. Mike Shapiro, a practicing psychologist, who was happy to answer your question and make his reply available for our readers.

Mike Shapiro's reply:

Counseling addicts is very nuanced and not an easy thing to learn! Getting trained as a professional addiction counselor takes lots of extra schooling (at least a master's degree), plus many hours of supervision and testing to obtain certification.

Instead, you might want to help your friends by providing support, rather than counseling them. Specifically, encourage them to seek treatment, then help them remain consistent in treatment (which is notoriously difficult for addicts), perhaps by reminding them of appointments, driving them to appointments, and visiting them regularly to help them be accountable.

Something I do with the young physicians I train is to have them go to NA or AA meetings, just to see what it's like. If one of your friends is open to AA or NA, you could go with them regularly, not only to support them emotionally, but to learn what kind of struggles are faced by persons with substance use disorders.

Once again, if you want formal training in addiction counseling, I can help you get pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it's best to find ways to simply provide social, emotional, and spiritual support.

Michael S. Shapiro, PhD
Child and Adult Neuropsychology
Director of Behavioral Medicine
Duke/Southern Regional Area Health Education Center

[Also check out Al-Anon and Celebrate Recovery.]