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UM’s Online Addiction Studies Certificate Fills Critical Counselor Shortage

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MISSOULA – For University of Montana student Amanda Martinez, the decision to study addiction counseling was both academic and deeply personal.

Recovering from drug addiction, Martinez wanted to use her difficult life experiences to help other women struggling with drugs and alcohol and knew she needed training to succeed.

“My story is not unique and that’s sad,” said Martinez, a mother of two. “Something dramatic happens to so many women and they don’t know what to do. They lose their children, they are hurt and the vicious cycle begins. I want to be a defender of women and mothers.”

That desire led Martinez to enroll in Missoula College’s Addiction Studies Program, which now offers a fully online technical studies certificate to help address the growing problems surrounding substance abuse while increasing the number of professionals working in the field.

According to the Montana Substance Use Disorders Task Force, an estimated 79,000 Montanans struggle with substance abuse disorders, and drug overdoses are the fourth leading cause of injury-related deaths. been Meanwhile, a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 92 percent of Montanans with a substance abuse disorder do not receive treatment.

“In every community there is a labor shortage for people who want to treat substance abuse disorders. And that becomes even more difficult in rural areas,” said Katie Smith, assistant professor of the program of chemical addiction studies at the UM. “Substance abuse is treatable if we have the resources.

“And every person who completes this program is that resource.”

The Addiction Studies CTS offers students wherever they live the online courses needed to apply for a licensed addiction counselor license. With the training completed, graduates are fully employable and can apply for their license after completing 1,000 supervised hours working in the field, Smith said. The certificate can also be combined with Missoula College’s General Studies Certificate to complete an Associate of Arts degree.

Patrick Ryan, clinical program supervisor at the Missoula Recovery Center, calls Missoula College’s substance abuse studies program “essential” to substance abuse treatment in the community.

Patrick Ryan, clinical program supervisor for the Missoula Recovery Center at the Western Montana Mental Health Center, serves on the program’s advisory board and calls it “essential” to substance abuse treatment in the community.

“Demand for services always exceeds supply,” said Ryan, a recovering alcoholic. “I have patients waiting three to five weeks to get one of our beds. While they’re waiting, they’ll continue to use. Not all of them will make it to admission.”

Sober since April 23, 2012, Ryan said he spent years trying to manage an illness that is unmanageable without help, eventually entering a long-term treatment program offered by WMMHC’s Share House. While there, he was accepted into the state’s Vocational Rehabilitation Program and enrolled in Missoula College’s Chemical Addiction Studies program. He eventually went from a volunteer at WMMHC to a licensed addiction counselor and is now the director of the recovery center.

“The fact that we’ve come full circle is not lost on me,” Ryan said. “Going from patient to student to professional. That’s what this is all about.”

Smith and Ryan emphasized that while many students in the program are in recovery or have family experience with addictions, it is not necessary to be successful as an addiction counselor.

“Being in recovery can help you build relationships, but you still have to have the tools to understand how to help,” Ryan said. That includes, he adds, understanding how trauma can be a driver of alcoholism and drug abuse.

For Martinez, the death of his mother in a car accident exacerbated his drug use.

“I wasn’t participating in life and I got into a lot of trouble,” Martinez said. “I tried to manage it myself, but I had no guidance on how to do it.”

After serving time and completing a Montana Department of Corrections treatment program, Martinez returned to her family home in Victor and is working to mend relationships with her daughters, establish a recovery community and design a new future for herself.

“I thought maybe I could go back to school, but then I thought, no, I’m a felon, on probation, and a drug addict,” Martinez said. “My dad said fill out the application, see what happens. The worst they can say is no.”

Missoula College didn’t say no, and Martinez finished her associate’s degree and now wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

“My instructors never made me feel inferior, they celebrated my successes and explained things to me,” Martinez said. “I felt I had nothing to offer, that I was too tarnished. But it’s your experiences of the world that make you.”

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Contact: Dave Kuntz, UM Director of Strategic Communications, 406-243-5659, dave.kuntz@umontana.edu.

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Laura Chapman: Substance abuse disorder doesn’t work like that

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This comment is from Laura Chapman, a community organizer living in Putney.

“I don’t give them money, because they will only buy drugs with it. I don’t want to feed his addiction.”

Let’s unpack this statement that I just repeated to myself for what felt like the millionth time today. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they are actively dependent on illicit substances, struggle and abuse to fuel a substance abuse disorder. Do you think not giving them money will starve the disorder and that will force them to stop?

Based on my years of embedded observations and experience, this will not be the case. Substance abuse disorder doesn’t work like that. If it were that simple, the so-called “war on drugs” would have worked. Instead, we have one of the highest rates of substance abuse disorders in the world.

Addiction of any kind is tenacious, but substance abuse disorder is downright herculean in the power it holds over those who struggle. One way or another, he will get what he needs. And it depends on us focusing on outcomes, not root causes, to continue to thrive and grow in our communities.

So what happens when someone struggling with a substance abuse disorder can’t meet the demands of addiction and manipulation doesn’t work?

What I have witnessed is that depending on the substance one is addicted to, some become incredibly sick and desperate. It really is a disease.

Some (not all, not even most) become so ill and desperate that they make an incredible effort, but in the illness they are not stable, their decision-making abilities are compromised, their inhibitions are lowered, and the ability to take care of themselves, others. , anything but what it will take to make this pain stop, goes out the window.

This may look like selling whatever they have, including themselves, to whoever will pay, no matter how horrible. It can mean allowing dealers to move into your home and take it over, turning it into a trap house, a place where they are literally trapped, fed a small supply to comply and often He subjects them to violence when they are not. . Or it can mean taking whatever they can find to sell, and sometimes that looks like breaking and taking from you, from me, from our community.

And after all that, when the disease is momentarily satiated, they know what they did to get there and often hate themselves more for it, so they medicate more, deepening the cycle and making it harder to break out.

That’s why I give money without a doubt.

Manipulation is a desperate enough act for my compassion and I don’t want anyone to feel driven to further despair. I give this because I hope that if they are being used, it will hurt them less to use in a compatible way than they would otherwise to have fed that need.

Because they are suffering, they deserve connection and support. I care that they stay alive and I hope that one day they find a way to live without the torment of substance abuse disorder.

The data shows again and again that the most successful outcomes are almost always rooted in harm-reduction approaches and not in making judgments or withholding aid.

Please consider this before deciding that you will not support someone who is ill. Until we as a society can do better, as individuals we must act with more thought and compassion.

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Tags: an illness , casting judgments , effective treatment , harm reduction , laura chapman , substance abuse disorder

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