Substance Abuse Counselor Requirements in Wyoming: Credentials, Hours and Exams

Wyoming folds addictions counseling into the Mental Health Professions Practice Act, the single statute that also licenses professional counselors, clinical social workers and marriage and family therapists — there is no separate addictions-only chapter.

Four tiers sit inside it: the CAPA and CAP certifications, the PAT provisional license, and the LAT license.

The statute's prohibited-acts clause bars practicing addictions therapy, or representing oneself as licensed as an addictions therapist or certified as a certified addictions practitioner, without complying with the act — covering the LAT and CAP titles directly.

The CAPA and PAT titles are protected instead at the rule level: each may be used only after the Board grants that certification or license (ch. 4 § 6(a) for CAPA, ch. 7 § 2(a) for PAT).

Between the statute and those two rule sections, none of the four titles is available to claim informally.

The CAP and CAPA definitions each specify practice under a qualified clinical supervisor, which tells a graduate reading them cold that only the LAT reaches independent practice.

CAPA's education requirement (rule ch. 4 § 3) can be met four ways: a current NCAC Level I or IC&RC AODA certification, an addictionology/chemical-dependency/SUD-counseling associate's degree, or 270 addictions-specific contact hours — no bachelor's required.

CAP's requirement (rule ch. 3 § 3) is separate: a current NCAC Level II certification, a bachelor's specifically in addiction therapy, or a bachelor's in a human resource discipline paired with either a NASAC-accredited addictions associate's degree or the rule's defined coursework.

A bachelor's in a human resource discipline alone does not meet the CAP requirement without one of those pairings.

The statute sends the LAT to a master's or doctorate degree in one of the act's four disciplines; the rule adds that the degree must carry a concentration in addictionology, chemical dependency, substance abuse, healing arts or a related field.

A graduate degree in another mental health discipline is generally still accepted instead, paired with 22 semester hours of the rule's listed coursework.

The statute sets the LAT's supervised-experience floor as 3,000 hours of supervised clinical experience, and specifies that a 100-hour minimum of face-to-face individual clinical supervision from a qualified clinical supervisor is included within that 3,000-hour total, not a separate add-on.

The rule adds the mechanics: all 3,000 hours must be completed after the graduate degree is awarded, over a period of not less than eighteen and not more than thirty-six months unless the Board grants an extension, and at least 1,200 of the 3,000 must be direct client contact hours, with the remaining balance as supporting work such as charting, preparation, meetings and trainings.

Hours earned as a CAP or CAPA before the graduate degree don't carry forward toward the LAT total.

Separately, a bachelor's holder without an addiction-specific degree has an alternative route into CAP certification itself: 2,000 hours of supervised work experience as a CAPA or equivalent, in place of the bachelor's-in-addiction-therapy or coursework routes above.

CAPA candidates take the NCAC Level I exam, capped at three attempts before a fourth requires an approved remediation plan — both stated together in the CAPA chapter itself (rule ch. 4 § 4).

CAP candidates take the NCAC Level II exam or the IC&RC Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Counselor (AODA) exam, with an identical three-attempt-plus-remediation cap stated in the CAP chapter (rule ch. 3 § 4).

The LAT chapter lists its own exam options — the NAADAC or NBCC Master Addiction Counselor (MAC) exam, or the IC&RC Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (AADC) exam (rule ch. 8 § 5) — and that list applies to every LAT applicant, whether reaching the LAT through the standard PAT route or the LPC/LCSW/LMFT second-license route, which cross-references the same section.

The three-attempt cap for a PAT holder's progression exam sits instead in the shared provisional-license chapter covering every discipline's provisional licensees, not the LAT chapter (rule ch. 7 § 4(a)(iii)); the second-license route's own chapter doesn't restate an attempt cap for that path.

The Provisional Addictions Therapist license bridges toward the LAT, and the statute admits it through three educational routes: a qualifying master's or doctorate already meeting board standards, a clinical master's or doctorate with deficiencies to complete during the term, or an out-of-state independent-practice license that misses Wyoming's reciprocity criteria, again with deficiencies to complete.

Separately, the rule lets the board grant a PAT to an applicant who falls short of any of those degree standards by no more than six semester hours, once ethics, practicum and internship coursework is already done — a rule-level exception to the education requirement, not a fourth statutory route.

Once issued, the license allows supervised practice only and isn't renewable, but it can be extended: six months to keep sitting for the exam if hours and supervision are done, or three years to finish the hours if the exam was already passed within the initial three years — each requested in writing with a justification.

CAP and CAPA carry a shorter clock: six months from employment to certify, extendable for good cause.

Only the LAT may practice independent of supervision — the statute groups it with LPC, LCSW and LMFT as licenses that reach that status, and addictions therapy practice under the LAT includes diagnosis.

The CAP sits one step below: its practice includes diagnosis, referral and follow-up, but only under the supervision of a qualified clinical supervisor, so a CAP can render a diagnosis, just never independently.

The CAPA is scoped out of diagnosis entirely — the rule states directly that its practice does not include assigning diagnosis, making treatment recommendations, or acting as a primary treatment provider.

For a clinician structuring a caseload, that means the CAPA role is built around supporting activities, not clinical decision-making, while the CAP and LAT both diagnose, differing only in whether a supervisor's sign-off sits over the work.

Wyoming is not itself an IC&RC member board at the counselor level — its only IC&RC-affiliated boards cover peer support and prevention, not CAPA, CAP, PAT or LAT.

A counselor moving to Wyoming with an out-of-state IC&RC credential isn't transferring into an equivalent Wyoming credential the way an IC&RC-to-IC&RC move works elsewhere; Wyoming's own statute and rules control instead.

The statute lets the board issue a license or certification for a substantially similar out-of-state credential, but each tier's rule layers on its own conditions: CAP needs a bachelor's in a human resource discipline, CAPA an associate's, and LAT a master's or higher in that discipline, each plus that tier's exam and a credential that is free from discipline and in good standing, verified across every state held within the last five years.

A statutory good-cause route covers social worker, CAP, CAPA and mental health worker applicants who miss the substantially-similar test, and the LAT rule separately gives LAT applicants their own good-cause petition — good cause isn't limited to CAP and CAPA.

Renewal runs every two years, due on or before the licensee's birthday, with 45 contact hours of continuing education.

Three of those hours must be professional ethics and three must be suicide assessment or intervention, a requirement that does not apply to renewals submitted before January 1, 2020, so it binds every renewal now.

On top of that shared 3-and-3, LAT, CAP and CAPA holders specifically need at least 15 of the 45 hours in addictions-specific topics, a carve-out the rule applies only to the addictions tiers.

The statute itself only requires biennial submission; the 45-hour figure and the topic splits come entirely from the rule, so a renewal checklist should cite the rule, not the statute, for the numbers.

Wyoming's Counseling Compact privilege went live August 31, 2026, but the compact subsections apply only to a license for practice as a licensed professional counselor — the LAT, CAP, CAPA and PAT credentials aren't named, so an addictions therapist moving to or from Wyoming isn't covered by the compact privilege.

Separately, other subsections of the same statute section were repealed by the legislature in 2021; the sources read for this page did not review what those repealed subsections said, so this page does not assert what changed.

No other addictions-tier amendment from 2023 through 2026 turned up in the statute and rules read.

For a candidate researching Wyoming today, the operating text is the current codified statute and the 2019 rule filing.

An LPC, LCSW or LMFT already licensed in good standing under this act can add the LAT without a new graduate degree, under the rule section titled "LAT as a Second License."

The education piece is 150 contact hours of diverse addictions-specific training within five years of applying, including addictions assessment, from at least four of five listed subject areas.

The practicum piece has three alternatives: a practicum with addictions-specific clients during the original master's program, 150 face-to-face clinical contact hours with addictions-specific clients supervised by an LAT, completed within five years of applying for licensure and after the original license issued, or five years of full-time addictions-field experience within the ten years before applying, after the original master's degree.

The exam requirement is the same LAT exam list as the standard route.

This route is limited to holders of the other three licenses under the act; CAP or CAPA holders still use the standard graduate-degree, hours and exam requirements.