Category Archives: love addiction

What kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Melissa Killeen
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Melissa Killeen

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013. Since then, recovery coach or peer recovery specialist training has become one of the fastest growing aspects of the coaching field. So what kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer recovery-specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to 250. Many state certification boards have established recovery coach and peer recovery support specialist certifications.

Many of the organizations that offer addictions recovery coach training or peer recovery-support specialist training are listed on my web site: https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/recovery-coach-training-organizations/. For many people interested in being a recovery coach, the training costs, deciding on the best training organization and the training necessary to fulfill the certification requirements can be confusing. So I would like to attempt to clear up this confusion and will answer these questions in this post:

  • What are the guidelines I must meet to apply for recovery coaching training?
  • What kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

What are the guidelines to apply for recovery coaching training?

Applicants must meet the following guidelines to apply for a training course in order to be a recovery coach or a peer recovery support-specialist. These guidelines are shared by many training organizations and certification boards across the nation as a standard for what a potential recovery coach must have before applying for recovery coaching training:

  • High school diploma, GED or higher
  • Minimum of one year of direct knowledge of sponsorship and 12-step programs
  • Minimum one year of sobriety from substance use or one year sobriety in co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (self-attestation)

What kind of training should I look for?

Certification boards require the coach to receive outside training that fulfills the requirements mandated by the state board. These requirements are often a certain amount of hours training in topics such as addiction recovery theory and models, coaching ethics, motivational interviewing, relapse prevention, nicotine cessation, suicide prevention and HIV-AIDS education. Each state and organization has different requirements. So first check with your state to ensure the course you take will be accepted by the state credentialing board.

There are trainings offered that can give a coach more information that may not be on the state certification board list, but are very helpful. The kinds of training I found helpful as a new recovery coach were: conflict management, anger management, intervention training, co-occurring disorders, behavioral addictions, the pharmacology of addiction, and psycho-pharmacology as well as knowledge about coaching families in relationships with addicted persons. There are also training organizations that offer three different levels of recovery coaching training: novice-, intermediate- and master-level coaching certificates.

The places in which you receive this training are quite diverse. In the links section of this web site, I list over 250 organizations offering recovery coach training. The courses can be online, or in a classroom. The costs for this training is diverse as well, from free (in Ohio) up to $4,000 per course. The length of the course could be three days or four months.

At no time does taking a recovery coaching course give you an immediate state certification board recovery-coaching credential. It gives you a document (called a certificate) that says you completed the training. There are many coaches who do not seek state board certification, and use this document or certificate from a training organization as adequate proof they are knowledgeable in performing the duties of a recovery coach.

There is one international credentialing organization, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium, commonly known as the IC & RC (http://internationalcredentialing.org/) that runs many state credentialing boards and has developed an exam for a Peer Recovery (PR) Certification. The IC & RC suggests applicants check with their state credentialing board for specific test taking guidelines.

Are there any additional requirements for recovery coaching certification?

NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals, and the National Certification Commission for Addiction Professionals (NCC AP) http://www.naadac.org/NCPRSS offer the Peer Recovery Support-Specialist Certification. Similar to the requirements of the IC & RC, the NCC AP recommends, in order to receive certification, a coach read and sign a statement on the application affirming adherence to the Peer Recovery Support-Specialist Code of Ethics. Credentialing boards require supervisors of the coaches-in-training to sign a document verifying they have supervised the coach during the period of the coach’s training. Letters of recommendation are also items required by some credentialing boards. Other state boards require a recent photograph. As always, check with the state credentialing board for specific requirements for credentialing.

Next week’s post will review what certification is required to be a peer-to-peer support-specialist working with people in mental health recovery

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Melissa Killeen
melissa-new-post

Melissa Killeen

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013. Since then, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist certification training has become one of the fastest growing aspects of the coaching field. So what kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to 250. Many state certification boards have established recovery coach and peer-recovery support specialist certifications. Yet, for many people that seek to be a recovery coach the qualifications, the training, the requirements for certification, or credentialing seem baffling. So I would like to attempt to clear up this confusion and will answer these questions in this post:

  • What is the process for certification as a recovery coach or peer recovery specialist?
  • What kind of certification should I be focusing on?

What is the process of being qualified, getting training and then credentialed as a recovery coach or peer-recovery support specialist?

If you are investigating becoming a recovery coach, I suggest you follow these steps:

  1. Research the training organizations that offer recovery coach training you can afford. Go to https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/recovery-coach-training-organizations/ for a list of addiction recovery coach training organizations
  2. Verify that you meet the qualifications to apply for the course (e.g. be 18-years-old, have a GED or high school diploma, one year sobriety from any addiction)
  3. Take and pass the course, retain the coaching certificate for future purposes
  4. Research places like Recovery Community Organizations or treatment centers to work or volunteer as a recovery-coach-in-training
  5. Apply to your state certification board for recovery coach certification (a fee may apply)
  6. Complete the recovery-coach-in-training supervised practice hours that are required by the state board
  7. Send in your application with paperwork verifying the completion of practice hours to the state credentialing board with a certification fee (fee varies for every state, from $100-$250)
  8. Receive your recovery coaching or peer-recovery support specialist certificate
  9. In the next 2 – 5 years take the required courses for renewing this certificate. Refer to your state board for more information on courses and renewal time frames. A renewal fee will be required.

What kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

For an addiction recovery coach, the certification and training is prefaced with the terms: peer-support specialist, certified peer-recovery practitioner, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist. Every state is different and every state uses different names for these certifications. Look for courses that offer the training needed for an addictions coach and a peer working with people in mental health recovery certification. It is the exact same training, in the same exact classroom, for two different jobs descriptions! It may be confusing now, and quite possibly the content and descriptions of  these courses may change going forward. But I would have to have a crystal ball to predict that for certain.

I suggest you first take a certification training course. You can make the decision after the training is completed to apply for state board certification. As a coach if you are interested in being your own business person, certification by a training organization should be adequate. If you want to work in a treatment center, with a recovery community organization, social services agency or hospital, certification issued by the state’s certification board or the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) is required by the institution hiring you. If you want to carry professional liability insurance, or be reimbursed by Medicaid for your services, certification by a state certification board is mandatory.

What is a state certification board?

The process for receiving a certificate as a recovery coach is overseen by a state’s certification or licensing board. A state certification board tests and renews practitioner’s (coaches, therapists, nurses, etc.) certificates to ensure their knowledge is up to par. Also, that they have the ethical knowledge to practice in their profession. These processes for certification, such as training, educational requirements, exams and renewal guidelines, varies from state to state. These certification standards are recognized by health care companies, insurance companies, Medicaid, Medicare as well as companies that hire these practitioners.

These state certification boards are the same boards that issue licenses or certifications for drug and alcohol counselors, and therapists. Some states have combined licenses and certifications boards all in one office, so it could be the same office in which nurses or hairdressers receive their licenses. I suggest you search the Internet for drug and alcohol certification for your state. Then search for the state board website for recovery coach or peer-recovery support specialist certification. As of May 2008, thirty state credentialing boards had developed criteria for the training and deployment of recovery coaches and peer-recovery specialists, so you should have no trouble finding these boards on the Internet.

What is Reciprocity?

Reciprocity is a term you will see used often on these board sites. When you are certified through your home state’s certification board, you may have the ability to transfer that credential to another state. This is called reciprocity. State certification boards may offer reciprocity to certified coaches in other states. The state boards have the authority to set reciprocity requirements for coaches to practice in their state. Not all certifications are eligible for reciprocity. It is vitally important that you investigate reciprocity guidelines prior to relocating to another state, because it can be a very complicated process.

There are national and international recovery coach certifications available. In 2013, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) developed a peer recovery credential. The application for the peer-recovery certification appears on the IC & RC web site. An IC & RC credential is accepted by many agencies and treatment centers when they are hiring recovery coaches.

In next week’s post I will review what kind of training you need to have in order to apply for recovery coach certification.

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I’m a guy, can I be a love addict?

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Melissa Killeen
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Melissa Killeen

“Seeing her in the afternoon was like being in heaven,
it took away all of my worries”“This is the only woman who has ever understood me.”

“She is the woman I have dreamed of being with my whole life.”

“She will fix me.”

You are a guy—can you be a love addict? There are many men who have thought these thoughts. There are many men who are dedicated to their wives, yet, seek love in the arms of other women. There are other men who do, do, do for their wives and their families without ever considering their own needs. It is very hard for a man to admit he is a love addict. But there are many men in the 12-step rooms of Love Addicts Anonymous or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous that recognize they have a behavioral addiction: love addiction.

People fall into love addiction because the behavior is transformative. In this case, feelings of love, romance and fantasy are a “fix” or a sedative for the negative feelings of anxiety, despair, self-doubt, rage, fear of abandonment, etc. The problem is that the fix doesn’t last. Just like any sedative, it wears off.

All healthy relationships transverse from euphoria to loving. Along that trail you receive the knowledge that your partner is a separate person with faults as well as gifts. You don’t feel rebuffed by your lover, for being you. You know she loves you, warts and all. Or does she? Love addiction is built on relationships that form heightened feelings of anxiety instead of feelings of safety and nurturing. Have you ever felt your relationship has moved from feelings of euphoria to feelings of doubt, depression or anxiety in a nanosecond? A love addict will often think “I love you, but, please stop hurting me.” I say think, because very often these thoughts are stuffed down and never verbalized after the first or second comments were met with a disdainful response. The love addict will deny reality, search for a flicker of the early magic, and tolerate anything in order to obtain a sense of security from their partner. But that sense of security rarely is obtained.

The love addict’s dependency on another person is characterized as maintaining the connection, approval or fantasized attachment to the other person. Occasionally, the term fantasy addict is heard in the “S” rooms. How often has a love addict, hurt and emotionally abused by their wife or girlfriend, retreated into the computer fantasy world of porn to seek what they are really looking for in their relationship? The love addict can live in the non-reality or fantasy that their lives are working, because they have the outward trappings of success (the house, clothes, cars, kids doing well). The denial of reality for the love addict is based on their fear of being abandoned, so the love addict makes up in his head that his miserable, love-less life is a small sacrifice as compared to him being alone.

Accepting crumbs

One of the greatest losses a male love addict experiences is his loss of self. The constant acting out in an unhealthy relationship results in an increasingly devalued view of self by the love addict, and an increasing idealized version of his love interest. There is an increased need to depend on the wife, partner, boss or friend as the stakes get higher. It is, at times, as if reality has become obscured. A businessman complains:

“I think she is trying to trick me to slip up, so she can leave me.”

“I will lie to avoid conflict.”

“I can last a year on just one compliment.”

The ability to trust is absent in addictive relationships. The pattern of these relationships involves more and more dependence, less and less fulfillment and many negative consequences that can border on abuse. The cost of being a love addict can affect any part of a man’s life, all of his relationships, family as well as in his career.

If a love addict actually loses his “fix,” he suffers not only psychological devastation; but a physical feeling of withdrawal which could include sleeplessness, eating difficulties, disorientation, sweating, cramps, anxiety, and nausea.

Can I recover?

It is often from these intense feelings of withdrawal that recovery begins. It begins with the end of denial and the recognition that these feelings could be an addiction. Withdrawal involves the wish to change, even when that wish comes from loss and pain. Recovery is not about finding another person or reclaiming your former lover, but about reclaiming yourself. Recovery from love addiction most often necessitates seeking professional help to regulate your feelings, grow your acceptance of self, improve your self-esteem, heal your past wounds, to look at your dependency issues and to forgive yourself.

You might want to consider attending a 12-step mutual support group such as:

http://www.loveaddicts.org/

http://www.slaafws.org

http://coda.org/

http://www.adultchildren.org/

To find a professional with counseling experience in love addiction go to The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) web site. SASH is a nonprofit organization dedicated to scholarship and training of professionals certified in sex and love addiction treatment.

http://www.iitap.com/certification/addiction-professionals

 

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