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Ethics involves the application of moral principles to promote good and prevent harm when coaching a person in recovery. Ethical decision-making within our service and advocacy activities is an assessment of the ratio of potential benefits to potential harms in any course of action—with a particular emphasis on “first do no harm.”

Such decision-making involves asking ourselves three questions.

First, what parties could benefit or experience harm in this situation (and what is the degree and duration of such benefit or harm)? In our advocacy roles, it is helpful to assess such potential benefits and harms related to ourselves, our families, organizations with whom we are associated, the recovery advocacy movement, and the community.

Second, are there any laws, policies, or historical practices that offer guidance in this situation? This question illuminates the complexities between law and ethics: actions may be legal and ethical, unethical, and illegal, legal but unethical, or illegal but ethical.

Third, what ethical values are most applicable to this situation and what course of action would these values suggest? Self-disclosure as an ethical issue has been explored in both professional and peer recovery support contexts , but little attention has been focused on ethical concerns related to self-disclosure within the context of public recovery advocacy.

Several traditional ethical values inform decisions related to disclosure of our personal recovery stories in public or professional settings.

• Beneficence is the ethical command to help others and not exploit the service context. It invites us to share our story as a means of helping individuals and families suffering from addiction and commands us to focus that story on those in need rather than as an act of self-aggrandizement or a means of pursuing our own interests.
• Nonmaleficence is the ethical command to do no harm. In the context of public recovery storytelling, it forces us to assess the timing and the intended and unintended consequences of our public disclosures on ourselves and other parties.
• Honesty demands that the recovery story be a truthful representation of our experience. Honesty and candor challenge us as advocates to speak truth to power even when lacking confidence in the authority of our own voice.
• Fidelity calls upon us to keep our promises. It asks us to remain faithful to pledges we have made to individuals and organizations. It asks us not to make promises that we cannot keep and to adhere to commitments made in the context of our story sharing.
• Justice requires that we acknowledge disparities in recovery opportunities and resources and calls on us to seek equity in such opportunities and resources.
• Discretion calls upon us to protect our own privacy, the privacy of our family, and the privacy of others in the presentation of our story. Public recovery storytelling is an act of public service; it is not public therapy or a platform for airing personal grievances.  
• Self-protection calls upon us in our service roles to avoid harm to self, family, and others. It is an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of tending to our own safety and health. It is a recognition that risks of harm to self and others exist within the public storytelling arena.

There are also values deeply imbedded within the history of communities of recovery that can inform recovery storytelling within public and professional arenas.

• Humility reminds us of the dangers of ego-inflation and that we speak not for ourselves but for the experiences and needs of all people seeking and in recovery. (See earlier blog on distinction between recovery rock stars and recovery custodians)
• Gratitude is a call to give credit where it is due and to express our thanks to individuals and organizations that made our story possible. We offer our own story in thanks for the meaning we drew from the stories of others at a time we were most desperate for the hope they offered.
• Respect/Tolerance is a recognition of the spirituality of imperfection—that we are all wounded in some way, that through this shared brokenness and healing, we can experience profound connectedness. It is an extension of humility and empathy—seeing ourselves in the lives of others and respecting multiple pathways and styles of recovery.
• Service is the call to carry a message of recovery to all those who continue to suffer from addiction and related problems. We do that as an act of altruism and as a perpetual step in our own self-healing.

There are many decisions involved in public recovery storytelling. Filtering these decisions through a model of ethical decision-making and core values of recovery can help minimize risk to self and other parties.

Reprinted from Blog – The Ethics Of Public Recovery Self-Disclosure

By Bill White, Bill Stauffer, And Danielle Tarino

Accessed on Dec 10, 2020

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013 and in 2020 introduced the second edition. In seven short years, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist certification training has become one of the fastest-growing aspects of the coaching field. So- what do I need to do in order to be a certified recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to over 300. 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 that a recovery coach or peer recovery specialist must go through?

What is the process of getting the training, and then receiving the credential as a recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist?

What kind of recovery coaching certification should I be focusing on?

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

1. Research the training organizations that offer recovery coach training you can afford and that are in your area. 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. You are 18-years-old, have a GED or high school diploma, and have one-year sobriety from any addiction.
3. Take the required training hours for a recovery coach (some states require 46 hours)
4. Contact your state’s Addiction Counselor’s Certification Board, register your interest in getting a certification. This begins the process of obtaining a certification as a recovery coach.
5. Research places like Recovery Community Organizations, sober living residences, or treatment centers in your region. These are places you can work on your practice hours as a recovery-coach-in-training.
6. Start and complete the recovery-coach-in-training supervised practice hours. The hours vary by state. Generally, the required practice hours are between 200-500 hours
7. After you have completed these practice hours, send in your recovery coach certification application with paperwork verifying the completion of supervised practice hours to the state credentialing board with a certification fee (fee varies for every state, from $100-$250)
8. You can take up to two years to take the exam from starting your practice hours. When you are ready to take the recovery coach certification exam- you pay an additional fee for taking the certification exam.
9. When you pass the test, you receive the coaching certificate

Where do I begin?

To be a peer recovery coach, research for training prefaced with these words- peer-recovery-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 a peer recovery coach, recovery coach, and/or a peer working with people in recovery. It is the exact same training, in a similar classroom, with different job titles. It may be confusing now, but soon you will become adept at the new language.

What type of recovery coaching training should I receive?

I suggest you first take a basic certification training course. It can be a forty-two-hour course for $1,000. Or a four-week course for $4,000. It is your choice. Many states give CCAR credentialed training courses at a deep discount or for free. CCAR is the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery, it is a non-profit organization and one of the largest recovery coaching training organization in the US. Some community colleges also offer recovery coaching courses at a lower cost.

You can make the decision after the basic training is completed to apply for state board certification. As a coach, if you are interested in being your own business person, taking training with a CCAR-like 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.). These certificates to ensure their clinical knowledge is up to par. Also, that they have the ethical knowledge to practice in their profession. The processes for certification, such as training, educational requirements, exams, and renewal guidelines, vary 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.

The 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 certification 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 counselor’s certification for your state. Then search in this state board website for recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist certification. As of May 2018, forty 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 have the ability to transfer that credential to another state. This is called reciprocity. State certification boards may offer reciprocity to certified coaches from 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 complicated process.

There are national and international recovery coach certifications available. In 2013, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) developed an International Peer Mentor in recovery credential. NAADAC (National Association for Addiction Professionals)  developed a Nationally Certified Peer Recovery Coach credential, that is accepted in all states.

What recovery coaching certification should I be focusing on? Do I need extra training to be a recovery coach in a hospital working with opioid overdose, Narcan revived patients?

You can make the decision after the initial coaching training is completed to go further in your studies. Your choice to expand your knowledge can be enhanced by your personal experiences. If you personally have experienced an opioid overdose, you can be extremely helpful to someone experiencing the same in a hospital. If you have gotten sober on the streets, you can help another person in the homeless population do likewise.  If you have achieved recovery while incarcerated and now have successfully navigated the re-entry process, you are an ideal re-entry coach. If you have lived with an addicted loved one and emerged on the other side with a better point of view, you can help another do the same.

There are 2-day courses for recovery coaches working with patients that have been revived from an opioid overdose. There are 1-day courses for Re-Entry coaches and similar seminars for people wanting to work with the homeless population as coaches. There is a splendid one-week course for being a recovery coach working with families and parents of addicted loved ones that is organized by the Partnership for Drug Free Kids  https://drugfree.org/

What happens after you receive your recovery coaching or peer-recovery support specialist certificate?

You can begin working as a recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist. In the next 2 – 5 years, you are required to take certain courses in order to renew this certificate. Often this renewal training will require a six-hour ethics training to have been taken. Refer to your state board for more information on courses and the renewal time frames. A recovery coaching certificate renewal fee will be required.

Hopefully, this blog helps you formulate what is needed as you research being a recovery coach. An additional source of information with very enjoyable stories from other recovery coaches is the Second Edition of Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions. The book is available on Amazon