Put the Shovel Down: the accidental addiction counselor
Amber Hollingsworth became an addiction counselor by accident, then realized her whole family had been the training. This one changed how I think about quitting.
Everyone assumes addiction counselors are in recovery themselves. Amber isn't. She switched her master's program at the last second because she couldn't afford an unpaid internship year, and got handed a teen addiction program to design with basically no training. Only later did she connect the dots: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. Her family was steeped in addiction. It had just felt normal.
Her move with teenagers was to stop being the authority. She told clients she was their defense attorney, not their probation officer. Aligned, on their side. Kids who graduated could come back free as peer mentors. Twenty years later it's still how she builds trust.
Her spiciest take: nobody quits drinking because they don't want to drink. People quit for external reasons (kids, marriage, staying out of prison) and she says there's no wrong reason to get sober. I share my own sobriety story in this one, and I think it's one of the most honest exchanges in the whole archive.
“No one who's alcoholic quits drinking because they don't want to drink. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.”
Notes
- She took the job by accident, a last-minute program switch to dodge an unpaid internship.
- Her whole extended family was steeped in addiction; it took adulthood to see it wasn't normal.
- With teen clients she played “defense attorney,” not probation officer, and let graduates return as peer mentors.
- People quit addictions for external reasons, and she says there's no wrong one.