About Addiction-Counselors.com
Our Story
Addiction-Counselors.com was created to make it easier to find and understand what it takes to become a substance abuse or addiction counselor in your state. Certification and licensing rules are set state by state, and the agencies that oversee them can be hard to navigate. Our guides explain each state’s requirements in plain language and link directly to the relevant pages of the state’s regulatory agency, so you can confirm current requirements at the source.
How We Research Our Guides
Addiction counselor credentials are set state by state, and the titles alone can be confusing, so our research starts with the organizations that define them.
State boards come first
Our editorial policy prioritizes each state’s certification or licensing board for credential requirements, and our state guides point you to the agency that sets the rules.
National standards for context
Where applicable, our state guides explain how NAADAC and IC&RC credentials or examinations relate to state-specific requirements. Each state determines which credentials and examinations it recognizes.
Salary data from BLS
We use U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for wage and employment projections. Reporting periods are identified on updated guides, and older pages may contain figures from earlier BLS releases.
Writers Who Have Contributed
Over the years, these freelance writers helped build Addiction-Counselors.com, turning state board rules and credential requirements into guides readers could use. All current and updated articles are produced by the Addiction-Counselors.com Editorial Staff and credited to them, following our editorial standards.
Writer and editor
Rebecca is a Pittsburgh-based writer and editor with more than 15 years of experience. She holds a BA in journalism and communications, and her work includes career articles developed from interviews she conducted with working professionals.
Freelance writer and editor
Susan has worked as a freelance writer and editor since 1986, and has written for education and career guidance websites since 2009. Her work spans newspaper reporting, press releases, academic and technical articles, and healthcare, mental health and career content, and she once wrote a monthly “Stateside” column for the UK’s Marketing Business magazine. She holds a BA in psychology from West Chester University.
Freelance writer
Sandra has worked as a freelance writer since 2009. She earned her degree in English, summa cum laude, from the New York Institute of Technology.
Author and IT consultant
Scott is an author and IT consultant based in the Pacific Northwest. He holds a BA in English from the University of Washington and has spent more than 20 years in information technology, experience that gives him a sharp eye for clear, precise explanations of technical subjects.
Everything we publish follows our editorial standards: where our facts come from, how we use AI, and how each article is fact-checked by a person before it’s published.
Our state guides identify relevant certification and licensing agencies and link to official resources where available. Requirements and agency websites can change, so always verify current information directly with the responsible state organization before you apply.
To get in contact with us for updates or anything else, please email us at [email protected].