Substance Abuse Counselor Requirements in North Carolina: Credentials, Hours and Exams

The Article names nine current roles, plus a Certified Substance Abuse Residential Facility Director certificate still named in 31A(8), the effective-until version of 31A(26), 42(d), and 43(a) but being phased out (see Recent Changes).

Two of the nine are entry-level registrant subtypes: an Alcohol and Drug Counselor Intern is a registrant completing 300 hours toward the CADC, and an LCAS-A is a registrant completing 300 hours toward the LCAS — the "Associate" title is the registrant category itself, not a separate licence.

Three are Board certificates rather than the state licence: the CADC, the Certified Prevention Specialist (CPS, for SUD prevention rather than counseling), and the specialty Certified Criminal Justice Addictions Professional (CCJP); the LCAS alone is the state licence, and the statute calls it "licensed" throughout while calling the others "certified."

A separate supervisor track runs Clinical Supervisor Intern to Certified Clinical Supervisor (CCS).

Section 90-113.42(a) makes practicing any scoped activity unlawful for anyone not credentialed under this Article, unless regulated by another profession or holding registrant or intern status.

The CADC's degree floor is a high school diploma or equivalency certificate, plus 270 hours of Board-approved education, of which no more than half may be independent study; the Certified Prevention Specialist shares that same floor.

The LCAS needs a master's degree with a clinical application in a human services field under every one of its four criteria.

Criteria A requires that master's plus 180 hours of SUD-specific training taken separately; Criteria B requires the master's plus an existing SUD counselor certification; Criteria C requires the master's itself to carry an SUD specialty that includes those 180 hours; and Criteria D, the deemed-status route, has no degree language of its own, but only reaches applicants from a professional discipline whose own credentialing body already requires a master's degree with a clinical application in a human services field of its members (G.S.

90-113.41A(a)(1)).

So the same statute runs from no college requirement at all for the CADC and CPS to a master's degree for the LCAS under every route to that licence.

The CADC path takes 300 hours of Board-approved supervised practical training under an applicant supervisor, then a total of 6,000 hours of supervised experience in the field, paid or volunteer.

The statute sets that figure without a lower tier for degree-holders, unlike the certified prevention specialist track in the same subsection, which drops to 4,000 hours with a bachelor's degree in a human services field.

The LCAS under Criteria A needs two years of postgraduate supervised SUD counseling experience plus its own 300-hour practicum; Criteria C needs only one year, and its master's degree must itself carry an SUD specialty.

The statute read here does not reduce the CADC's 6,000-hour figure for any degree level, and whether the Board's 21 NCAC 68 rules do so was not read for this page.

Every applicant for certification or licensure is tested in an examination developed by the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium/Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, Incorporated, or by the standards of a deemed-status discipline.

For the LCAS specifically, Criteria A through C each also require a passing score on a master's-level written examination administered by the Board.

The statute read here does not say whether that Board-administered exam is the same IC&RC-developed exam or a separate one; NCASPPB is itself North Carolina's IC&RC member board, which would be consistent with the Board directly administering the IC&RC exam, but the text does not say so explicitly.

Examinations run in North Carolina at least twice a year, and applicants licensing through deemed status under § 90-113.41A skip the standard 60-day filing deadline.

The statute does not name the specific IC&RC exam title (for example ADC or AADC) assigned to each tier; check the Board for the current exam assignment.

A CADC or CCJP is certified to practice under the supervision of a practice supervisor — a certified clinical supervisor, clinical supervisor intern, or LCAS providing face-to-face oversight to each of them by name.

That supervision does not end at certification: the renewal statute sets it, for both credentials, at one hour of supervision for every 40 hours of practice, easing to 1:80 after two years and 1:160 after four years, and each must submit a signed supervision contract documenting it at renewal.

The training period itself is also quantified for CCJP applicants specifically: they must complete a minimum of 10 hours of supervision in each criminal justice domain established by IC&RC/AODA as part of their 300 hours of supervised practical training.

A Clinical Supervisor Intern, in turn, works under the supervision of a certified clinical supervisor for a period not to exceed three years without a showing of good cause before becoming a CCS.

The scope-of-practice statute says the LCAS's practice "may be independent" and includes the Twelve Core Functions, referral for people with co-occurring disorders, and treatment for addictive disorder or disease; an LCAS may also provide supervision to maintain "a professional credential as defined by this Article" — that is, another Article 5C credential, not a professional credential generally.

A CADC's scope is the same Twelve Core Functions, but performed under a practice supervisor, not independently.

Neither the LCAS's nor the CADC's scope-of-practice text uses the word "diagnose" or "diagnosis" anywhere in this Article — whether either credential covers diagnosis is not stated in the sources read.

The Article also exempts other regulated professionals rendering SUD services within their own licensed scope, so a physician or LCSW doing SUD work under their own license is not practicing under this Article at all.

The North Carolina Addictions Specialist Professional Practice Board is itself the IC&RC member for this state, so an IC&RC-reciprocal transfer at a matching level (CADC as ADC, LCAS as AADC, CCS as CS, CCJP as CCJP, CPS as PS) runs through the same Board that issues the state credential, not a separate private organization.

For an out-of-state credential that is not an IC&RC match, the Board may furnish a certificate of certification or licensure to a person whose qualifications were, at the date of their out-of-state registration, certification, or licensure, substantially equal to this Article's requirements, after the applicant files and pays fees.

A separate deemed-status pathway under § 90-113.41A lets a professional discipline's own SUD credential — one meeting a master's-degree, 180-hour, one-year-supervised-practice standard — qualify its members individually for the LCAS.

There is no reciprocity between NAADAC's national certifications and IC&RC credentials; only IC&RC member boards reciprocate with each other.

Every certified or licensed credential under this Article — CADC, LCAS, CCS, CCJP, and CPS — renews every other year; a registrant's status instead runs on its own five-year cycle, renewable once for another five years.

Renewal of licensure — the LCAS — requires at least 40 hours of continuing education; renewal of alcohol and drug counselor or prevention specialist certification — the CADC and CPS — requires at least 60 hours, so their CE load is higher than the LCAS's.

A CCS additionally needs 15 hours of SUD clinical-supervision training before its certificate renews, and a CCJP needs 40 hours of CE in its own performance domains.

Independent study may not exceed half of the hours counted toward any renewal.

A credential that is not renewed automatically lapses unless the Board approves a late renewal on payment of a late fee, and no late renewal may be granted more than five years after the credential expired.

Session Laws 2023-83 amended the definitions section (90-113.31A) and the renewal section (90-113.37A) — the statute's own history lines mark this as the most recent amendment to either section.

Separately, the Article is phasing out the Certified Substance Abuse Residential Facility Director credential through two different tagging patterns: its own definition (90-113.31A(8)) and its scope-of-practice paragraph (90-113.31B(5)) are each a single provision carrying a note tag — "Contingent repeal" for the definition, "Postponed repeal" for the scope paragraph — while the definition of substance use disorder professional (90-113.31A(26)), the fee maximums (90-113.38(a)), the title-protection list (90-113.42(d)), and the illegal-practice list (90-113.43(a)) instead each carry two full parallel versions, one "for effective until date" that still includes the credential and one "for postponed effective date" that omits it throughout.

The statute text read here does not include the session-law note explaining either tag's trigger or naming its effective date; check the Board or the session law itself before relying on which version currently controls.