Mandilee Gonzales: Here we go.

Carol Breiling: There you go. Hello, witches, warlocks, ghouls, goblins, fellow saints and earth angels. I, myself, am an earth angel, and I'm dressing way out of character today because of the Yolo County here. We're going to be doing trick-or-treating with the clients and their families.

So without further ado, I'm going to jump right into a couple of things. I'm going to share my screen with you. This thing here is just a little brochure. When I do PowerPoints, I really hate when everybody spends a million years talking about the same thing that's on the screen. I know you guys can all read the screen, so what I'm going to be doing is just highlighting a few things.

This document here, I don't want to go into why we have addiction, what it means. You can open this document in my saved documents in the resources and read what addiction is, the symptoms, how to define it, how to see the statistics. You can also see treatment programs and facilities, and I've included all the links to where this information is.

But as you know, addiction is widespread. It's affected every one of our families. It's really good if we can learn about addiction in the earlier years of our lives instead of when we're 50. So even though this is formulated to be an adult education program, people can actually start learning about this in the 11th grade. I, myself, came out of high school with a degree and a diploma, and I would like to be able to position this to be shown to my curriculum to 11th and 12th graders.

So when they come out of high school, they can already be in their new career as an addiction counselor, and they can work in a ton of places. They can work at a crisis center, they can work at hospitals, they can work at outpatient treatments, residential-- a lot a lot of places. And they come out of their high school with a degree, and a diploma, and a new career. So that would be great.

But for adults, you can have this curriculum offered at any adult school. A student can be someone that's in a transition going from early adulthood. They could be a retiree. We all need substance-use counselors. The demand out there is incredible. So you can read this document. I'm going to stop sharing it because I only have an hour, and I'm going to share a different one.

Now, this is my PowerPoint presentation. I'm going to start a slide show from the beginning, and here we go. OK. I just wanted to come back. The name of my company is a nonprofit, it's called the Center for Higher Purpose. And my goal is to raise the bar on short-term education, where I'm raising up the next level of substance-use counselors, the next generation of substance-use counselors. So I really-- I do definitely love what I do.

When we go through this whole program, these are the books-- you're going to see many things that makes my program different than anything else out there. As a psychologist, I infuse a lot of what psychology has taught us about the change process, about the trauma that we all have been through. Not all of us, but most of us, and certainly for the clients that come to treatment. There's been trauma in some way, shape, or form.

And what I do is I work with each counselor for their stuff so that they don't bring that into the counseling setting. So these are some of the books I use. The first two that you see here are free downloads-- oops, I didn't mean to point to it-- are free downloads from the SAMHSA website. These two books are wonderful to have. These are the cheat sheet books for doing progress notes, doing treatment plans.

I really go into a lot of depth with each of my students, but the main textbook is going to be this one over here, the Uppers, Downers, All-Arounders. I don't know if you can see my mouse, but this one here, this is where we really-- where the rubber meets the road. And, of course, at the end of the program, I prepare everybody for the big exam, the IC&RC exam, which is our way of saying, you've graduated from journeyman to actual certification.

I'm going to go through these slides really brief. This is my whole entire curriculum. You can see my first module, my second module, third, fourth, fifth. There's 20 of them, so I'm going to breeze right through them. Teach you about neurochemistry, uppers, downers, all-rounders, other addictions.

And in that module, I teach the students what other addictions we could have. We could have pornography addiction. We could have cell phone addiction. Video game addiction. We could enjoy eating mattresses, foam addiction. So there's so many other ones, and I have, in this module, students to choose two addictions that they like to talk about.

And then when we finish with all the different individual categories of drugs, we talk about the psychopharmacology. And, now, that gets into a little depth, but I make it very easy. I normally teach this program in the prison system, and even people with an eighth grade education really get it because of the way I teach. I bring it to them as layman terms. I teach them with a lot of visuals because a lot of people are visual learners like myself.

I need to see something on a chart before I understand it, or I need to see something visually. And that's what I do through my-- it's an online program. So I infuse a lot of these images inside a Word document so when someone's sitting with their morning coffee at 5:00 AM doing their studies, they're doing it at their pace, and they're seeing everything I'm trying to communicate with them right on the screens.

The most exciting modules I have are going to be the 11th one and the 12th one where we get into individual counseling and family group therapy. Those are wonderful. Case management in the 14th module is a really wonderful one. My very favorite is the professional and personal development with cultural competence. I really love that module, and you'll see more why I love it so much in a little bit.

Anyway, so those are the 20 modules that I have, and here I'll talk about the first module. The first module is a nine-hour orientation. There are three governing bodies that certify counselors. There's CADTP, CCAPP, and CAADE. All of my students will be processed through the CADTP governing body. So in this module, I introduce the student to confidentiality, HIPAA compliance, boundaries, when we have limits to our confidentiality.

And then one thing that separates my program from all the others, I believe, and I've taken a number of them is that I like to talk about the pros and the cons of every theory. When I talk to the students about boundaries, I want to know, how do you make blunders? So that you can recognize when you yourself are saying something out loud in a space you have no business talking in. So we're going to really see-- the most special thing about this module is we really talk about the pitfalls and the violations that can get a counselor in a whole lot of trouble.

But it's hard to put all this in a nine-hour module. You'll get all this in the law and ethics module. So what I do in this module, I also develop the ASAM, and I introduce people to the ASAM. Because right after this module, you learn about confidentiality and HIPAA. And even if you are a Jiffy Lube, that doesn't really give you the knowledge you need to turn tires and change oil. But in this field, we allow students to get up and running and become employable right after the first module.

So I tried to put some stuff in the module that will help them to tell their employer, I know how to do an ASAM assessment. I can tell you when I'm looking at a client what level of care they need. That is music to an employer's ears. So I do an ASAM assessment with the students right in this first module so that when they hit the field-- excuse me, they can start being effective from the first day they enter the field.

So this is module 1. I always give my students-- excuse me, a choice to get their journeyman certification, their registration number right now because it's their right, or I ask them to wait a little bit further down in the program until they have more knowledge about addiction. And a lot of them opt to wait a little bit. Excuse me.

And moving on to module 2. Now, I like this module. A history class can be really boring. You can really fall asleep. But what I do is I put in a lot of fun essays-- a lot of fun videos like the Roots of Prohibition, A Nation of Drunkards. These are all black and white films, documentaries that were created, and they're really, really interesting.

It's actually from the textbook that was put on YouTube. So when someone's doing the history of drug and alcoholism, they can go through all these different historical eras, and yet watch the video that goes along with the textbook. So that's why it's a very easy online platform to do. Just watch the video, and you pretty much will get everything you need for the quizzes.

So we look at all the history of things. We're looking at prohibition and how-- do you all know that women really were big on the Prohibition? They were the movers and the shakers of the Prohibition era because the husbands-- the families were falling apart. Husbands were going out, they would get snookered. Families were breaking up.

The women got tired of it, so they really started the Christian Temperance movement and all this. And you can see how women's rights are today, and how boisterous we feel about-- we want to be in control over our households, our lives, our bodies, all of this stuff actually came from the era of drug and alcohol abuse and the Prohibition era when women started becoming more like-- they were asserting themselves more, they were smoking, they were going to these nightclubs and these speakeasies.

This is where a student learns about the history of drug and alcohol, and how it opened up into the gang activity that we see today. So it's really quite interesting when we talk about the gender barrier being broken. And then we move into the Al Capone Beer Wars, everybody Al Caponed. And then we move into the legal acts, and how everything progressed over the course of maybe 100 or 200 years. And it's quite an interesting module. So that's really neat. I don't think any of the other programs do that kind of thing.

The third module, Neurochemistry and the Physiology of Addiction. This talks a lot about neurons and so forth. And I know that sounds real intimidating, but I make it very, very easy. When I talk about the brain, I will talk about maybe, so the brain-- so you're a DJ. And if you have different genres of music, and only the people that like rap will dance when a neurotransmitter that's rap-associated will come through the doorway, then everybody will dance because they like the music.

Then you'll have another flurry of hormones, and that's for the country music people. So when they come through the doorway and they hear the music, they start dancing, and everybody dances, and all the rap people sit down. So there's different ways to say, you can have drugs and alcohol in your system, they come to you like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Very tricky tricky.

They'll have you thinking that they're good for the body, and you desire it. And then as soon as they get in the door, that's when addiction happens. Now your body craves that feeling time, and time, and time again. So when I do the classes on neurochemistry, I really make it quite easy for the students, and they really do enjoy the videos that are in the class.

We look about the blood brain barrier. They learn so much. I'm not going to read all of these because you all can see all the ones on this list. We talk about the old brain, the spinal cord, the old brain, the new brain. Dan Siegel talks about that. And how when we have dementia or we have our body is so screwed up from drugs and alcohol, we start losing the first part which is the new brain, and then the only thing we remember is when we were 6 years old or 12 years old because that's the old part of the brain. Really amazing stuff.

So the videos I handpicked for all of these difficult lessons are really quite interesting. And there's not a student that doesn't come away saying, that was a great module. I really learned a lot. So that's what we talk about when we show all these in video. They're very, very good.

The fourth module, I bring students into the uppers. Now we're starting to talk about all the classifications of drugs and alcohol. This module will talk about uppers and stimulants. Cocaine, things like that. And some of the movies that we'll look at is "Do Stimulants Change Your Personality?" Better watch that video.

What are amphetamines and what do they do to you? They'll talk about personal stories. And believe me, some of these videos or very intense and very personal. They'll have you crying. They'll have you laughing. They'll have you scared. All that stuff. And what the crash cycle is like for amphetamines? Oh, amphetamines are very difficult things to cut. They really are. Even elders get hooked on prescription medication.

So drugs doesn't know any age. Just like cancer, they don't discriminate against the addict. They don't care if you're young, old, or indifferent. They will get you if you partake. So we talk about cocaine. What you need to know about cocaine. Cocaine side effects. And then it shows one woman's actual video of what cocaine can do to the bridge of the nose. It's gnarly. It's really gnarly. So I don't hold anything back when I show my videos. I take you right to the street so you can see full force what these are like.

And then the students can bring these to a DUI class and show the video themselves. So not only are you coming away with tools that you've learned from, now you can take these tools out to the field with you when you're teaching or with your clients, you sit with them. So this is a really wonderful field to be in, especially when you're passionate about it.

And most of my students are passionate about it. They're either ex-addicts, or they just don't want to see another family go through what their family went through. And they want to make a change. They want their life to have meaning and purpose. So a lot of times they'll become substance-use counselors. And this information, not only changes their lives, but it really helps them to be that change maker they wanted to be from the beginning.

So here we are. Module 5. It's Center for Higher Purpose 5, Downers and Depressants. Students receive information about opiates. What it does to the brain. The behaviors, the addictive behaviors. How the lying, the cheating, the stealing begins. And all the promises in the world. This is the addict's brain speaking. It's not your loved one. They're not in their same frame of mind as they would be had they been clear-minded. So you'll see a lot of that, and you'll learn about uppers, downers.

And here's the alcohol module. Center for Higher Purpose module 6, Alcohol. We talk about alcoholic beverages. We talk about fetal alcohol syndrome. Do you know there's a way of telling if a person's parent, mother was an alcoholic? It has to do with this little ridge here under the nose. Many little things, little tidbits of stuff you will learn when you take these different modules. You'll learn a lot.

In this particular module, we talk about 17 signs of a high-functioning alcoholic. I could go around the room right now, not that I will, but I can say, how many people know someone who may be a high-functioning alcoholic? I'm pretty sure a bunch of hands will go up because it seems like we all know somebody that is a high-functioning alcoholic.

And then we talk about the stages of alcohol withdrawal and how the DSM categorizes everything. So not only are you learning to recognize the symptoms and what's going on in the client right across from you, but you know how to categorize and speak to the professionals.

Because when they come to you, you have to justify, do I have the services that will meet their needs, or are they just lookie-loos just trying to take another class? Not that that ever happens, but we have to make sure that what we have to offer is the right level of care for them.

So my students come out of this course knowing exactly how to assess, and we'll get to that a little bit later. But we have to know what we're assessing-- what we're looking for. What are the symptoms? Each one of these modules goes into everything you will see when you're looking at someone that has alcohol use disorder. So that's really huge, that really is.

OK. Now, the seventh module is-- this is one of my favorite modules, All-Arounders and Synthetic Drugs. Do you know that you would think chemists must have this big ol' degree, a lot of these street chemists are no older than your high school-- not even graduate, but your high school student. They're your college student. They're mixing drugs and they're making them in such a way that they're mixing fentanyl in it.

Because you know they get-- it's a code out there in the street. If you have the most powerful drug without killing someone, you're the bomb diggity. And you've got to know what the symptoms look like. What you're seeing here with synthetic drugs, in the photographs, you're seeing the zombie drug. This is something like where you see someone flailing all around, and all about, and so forth, that's because they took bath salts. Yes, that's flakka. So we're going to learn about that.

In my videos, I show you, what is flakka, the zombie drug? Strange but true stories. Amazing stuff. We talk about news channels where a naked man ran full speed into the back of a window of a minivan. Crashes right through it. It's just shocking videos.

We talk about the VICE video. Now, this where someone-- everybody's blindfolded-- not blindfolded, but masked. They have guns in the video. These are real street people that are showing you why they do what they do, and how much money it is on the street. You get a real education when you hit the streets. Well, my students don't have to hit the streets, I show it to them on the videos.

We'll look at some before and after photos, amazing stuff. I make sure that all my videos are current, and that nothing has been pulled from YouTube or any other source that I give them. I make sure that everything is constantly updated. And I'm always adding to my modules because there'll be something new coming out on the news, and I'll need to address that.

For instance, look at the bottom of the screen here, we're looking at krokodil. That is a drug that is very big in Florida, where the limbs just-- it's a flesh-eating disease as well as tranq. Tranq is brand new. This only came out about maybe six weeks ago. Tranq dope. It's a horse tranquilizer, but it's added with a whole bunch of other stuff like fuels and kerosene like krokodil. But it's addicting. It's a heroin addict's cheap alternative.

But what it's doing, it's addicting these people for $5 or less. They mix this, that, and the other thing, and all of a sudden, their legs are falling off. And inside of one year, the person dies. The flesh-eating disease takes over their body and their organs, and they just-- they're a wreck. They're a hot mess.

So when you actually see what it looks like-- even people in the emergency room say, oh my God, I thought this was a flesh-eating disease. I had no idea that this was krokodil, they were a drug user. They're looking for all kinds of medical reasons of why this person is losing their-- their foot is dropping off from their leg and the bone, they're like, what the heck? And it's because of these drugs. So you're going to learn so much from each one of these modules.

Now, Center for Higher Purpose module 8. We have other addictions. Now we're talking about all these other things, the compulsive shopping, the hoarding, pornography, electronic addiction, smartphone addiction. You can see by this-- the eating disorders-- we go into each one, and I encourage each student to talk about what addiction they're interested in, or what they found to be very enlightening.

So they hit YouTube and they look for different videos. And believe me, the essays that come back are amazing, and they say, oh my God, Carol, I did not know that there were so many different addictions out there, but there really is. And the students found this exercise to be very interesting. So they really liked it.

And now we're moving on to psychopharmacology in the ninth module. I'm not going to go into it all because it really talks about what kind of drugs and-- no, pharmaceuticals will help different co-occurring mental illness. A lot of times we have mental illness along with drugs and alcohol. They interplay a lot. It's just the way it is.

They're just very-- oftentimes, someone has a mental illness, they take drugs and alcohol to cope. Someone starts with drugs and alcohol, they can develop these mental illnesses and start losing their faculties, they start loosening, they get very paranoid, and other things start taking over. So it's really hard to say whether the chicken was there before the egg when it comes to co-occurring disorders.

But my students learn about it. They look for the medication that's often commonly used for substance use. They look at the medication that's often used for mental illness. We only talk about medicated-assisted treatment programs because that's a specialized field all in and of itself. In this program, I just introduce that to the students should they want to go down that path, which they may want to. I always address each student, and I try to find out where they want to go with their career, and I lead them in that direction.

Our module 10, we talk about recovery interventions. So I've been in this field a long, long time. I have a thumb drive with all these little dittos, as you can see my age, all these worksheets, and group ideas, and topics, and little lesson plans, and I give it to the students all on a thumb drive. Every student walks away with a toolbox on a little thumb drive.

I don't know of any other program out there that equips the student with all this information. Not only do you get this stuff that you can use for the future in your modules, you also get it on a thumb drive. And all the lessons-- all the different tools on the thumb drive are listed by topic, or relapse prevention, whatever. So if you're looking at that thumb drive, you can-- just like a menu, you could choose what kind of course you want to teach your group that day. Wonderful stuff.

But recovery interventions. Now, this is where psychology starts getting infused into this addiction process. A lot of these other courses that you see offered out there don't have a psychologist that's helping people learn about the change process like I do. I talk about the moral model, the medical model, the genetic model, behavior, social model that comes across with a lot of cultures. Why some cultures are heavier drinkers than others, things like that.

And then we talk about the integrative approach because your client may be favoring one way or the other. But if you don't know all the approaches, you won't know how to work with that client. So these are how I really teach people to become counselors is in these relapse prevention and recovery interventions, and how to learn about the models that they feel closest to. I like the integrated approach. So other people may like the genetic model. They feel like, hey, you pass this down from your genes, and that's it. That's fine because there's no wrong answer. All of these models could fit.

We talk about some of the greats in the field like E. M. Jellinek. And he talks about the cycle of addiction. He uses a bell curve, and it's very interesting how we go from one starting use, to developing the addiction, and then the addiction drops off and we're relapsing, and now we-- and it goes up and down, up and down. We heal, we recover, then we relapse. And you can see by the bell curve how easy it is to go from one portion or stage of the addiction to another.

And then we talk about recovery. We talk about-- psychologists, now, we learn all this in our big bachelor's and master's degree program. We talk about the cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, DBT, motivational interviewing, 12-step programs, medically-assisted treatment. We learn all about this, we hear about it all, but this is where they actually learn the material and how to perform CBT. How to talk to people. Ask them the right questions.

And that's where motivational interviewing comes in. Asking open-ended questions. Wonderful things. Because someone will tell you their story. Everybody likes to talk about their story. Whether it's true or not is something down the road, but you have to assess somebody. So you have to be able to learn how to ask the right questions that are open ended, and get this person to talk to you.

Because you may find out at the end of the assessment they say something that contradicts, and you can say to them, well, wait a minute. You just said five minutes ago that, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which one is more accurate? So you catch them in their own lies. It's funny, but it's not. And that's what I teach students to do in this.

And a lot of times, I'm working with the student one on one either on Zoom or phone call. My students call me-- I'm available to students from 9:00 AM in the morning to 9:00 at night, seven days a week. Call me any time. I'm available. I love talking about this stuff. This is what I love to do. So students can always get help. Or they send me a text message. Carol, hit me up when you got a second. I do that.

So what I like about this module is we talk about relapse prevention for substance use. Look at all this, early warning signs. Three mistakes that cause families to relapse. We talk about the family model. When does one person be the scapegoat? When does one person be the funny person? All that stuff. Oops, sorry about that. And we talk about the different items that would be testable on the exam. So naturally, not only am I teaching you about this stuff, I also get you prepared for every exam-- for the big exam on the back end, the big IC&RC exam.

Now, I want to spend a little bit on these modules here. The 11 and 12, phenomenal. This is where we talk about individual counseling skills. These are about-- these are the didactics of what we do. All these little white words here, these are things that when you tell an employer, I understand how to summarize, reframe, and get people to talk, I understand motivational interviewing, I understand the difference between transference and countertransference, oh, the employer is going to feel like, I hit the jackpot with this applicant. I'm so glad, I'm going to hire you right away.

So that's how it happens. They have to be knowledgeable before they come to the employers. And this is the part where I really-- my program really develops the counselor so that it's no embarrassment when they come to counseling. I'll tell you what, in the field, so many times we're looking at people that are coming out of substance use counselors, they don't know squat about diddly. Nothing. And then they think they know it all, and they don't, and they're making big errors.

My students will not be making such big errors. They might, but it's unlikely. So I really like that. We talk about-- because I plumb them up. I talk to each student enough. Believe me, I know where they're going to slip up, and I let them know straight up. I don't sugarcoat anything.

It's like, hey, you know what you just did there? You just violated what we talked about in the first module. You just can't show all your stuff to an employer. You'll have broken all the confidentiality. I don't care how many accolades you receive from your clients, don't share their name. Little stupid things like that.

Anyway. So here's some of the videos, what relationships can make up a family system if they're not blood related, or blood related, doesn't matter. How can a person's environment affect that person in recovery. What different kinds of environmental or different changes need to take place if an individual wants to stay in enduring sobriety. All this. So this is some really good videos. I really think that these modules are really packed with a lot of good stuff.

Goals and readiness for change. What would be your goals to improve your family relations? So as I'm working with the students who likely have been former addicts in one lifetime or another, they are able to answer these questions. So now that they're learning about themselves. Now they know how to take the skill set that they learned from me as I was modeling. They now can take this to the field and be more effective as counselors. So it's all good stuff. It's all good stuff.

And in the family and personal modules like this, I show them ACEs. There's not a program out there that will talk about adverse childhood experiences. This is so huge. This is what makes people go to prison. This is how people cope. Adverse childhood experiences, I wonder if you've learned about this. But this thing is likely the reason our world is the way it is. It's just sad.

But if you don't understand about this stuff, and you don't understand your client, it's going to be-- you're going to be hard pressed to get that person to change or understand how to change his or her own behavior. But if you understand what trauma they're facing, you can help them unravel that stuff and decide not to-- make it a choice not to do drugs and alcohol. Wonderful things.

What about the attachment theory? The attachment theory-- when I first came into this field, I was getting over a broken heart. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why this gentleman, why this man would do the things he's doing, and why the heck out, at my age, would I do and even allow that stuff to happen. I found the attachment theory, and now I got all the answers. I was like, oh my gosh, this is delicious.

I learned about the attachment theory. How you can be secure, insecure, ambivalent avoidant, ambivalent clingy. And I categorized myself as being-- let's see, I was the ambivalent clingy. OK, that would be me. And I was like, what the heck? I know better than this. No, I didn't. I was acting in the way that were answering unmet needs from my childhood, and I never knew this. I never made any connection.

And when I teach this to students, their eyes pop open. They're like, oh my gosh, no wonder I did the things I did. That's the whole purpose of this. Well, from that attachment theory, I went through my bachelor's degree, my master's degree, and my doctorate together. I just could not stop learning. It was amazing. I just love knowing why we do the things we do. And, of course, it led me into the addiction and drug and alcohol fields, and I just fell in love with this field. So it's really good stuff.

And then we have codependency. Oh, boy, you think drugs and alcohol have to do with a drug or some kind of physical thing, you know it's an emotional bonding, too, it's codependency. How many times do you know someone that stays an addict because the parent just keeps allowing this stuff to happen, or something, or the spouse? Making up excuses, da da, da, da, da, all that.

If we don't learn about codependency, I can't tell that client, you cannot go back home. You go back home, and you're in a codependent environment. It's not healthy for you. You will relapse. Or it's a very stressful environment, and they can't go home.

They have to be able to find their way outside of their original environment because it's not conducive for enduring sobriety. But you have to know what codependency is all about. You have to be able to see it in yourself if you are a codependent. It's an addiction just like anything else, I'll tell you that.

And then I take each student through-- so you have to learn about your client, right? So you're thinking, well, how do I find out his whole history? You do it by starting a genogram. And in my lessons, I teach people how to do a genogram. What each symbol means, the square, the circle, the dotted line. These are all fake names. The dotted fill-ins, the deceased, things like that.

So this is a very simple example, but believe me, when I get the assignment back from my students, I see a chart that's huge that they have to scan it to me under a couple sheets of paper because it spreads so wide. But they're able to understand where the mental illness came from, where the addiction came from, where the trauma, the childhood trauma started, and they wish they had someone alive still so they can ask them more questions. So they're really learning a lot about their family history, then they can impart this wisdom onto their client and have their client do a family tree. So it really brings it all full circle. I wonder how I'm doing with time.

Mandilee Gonzales: You're doing good. You have about just under 20 minutes.

Carol Breiling: 20 minutes. Good, good. OK, thank you. So here we have the family and group therapy. Oh, I love this. You remember I talked about the little diskette-- not the diskette, there goes my age again, the little thumb drive. All the details are on that thumb drive. It's amazing. It's amazing how many things I give to students.

We get all this information from a free publication by SAMHSA. So I know I'm right in line with what the field is expecting me to teach them. There's a download thing, TIP 41, it's a publication for group therapy. Students learn all that stuff. Oh, I wonder if-- let me back up one. OK. No, I didn't have an extra slide. OK. So anyway, so then they learn about group therapy, and it's a really good module. Oh, so many good stuff. They get a lot of tools.

And now we talk about assessments. Now that you learned all about the disease, you learned about addiction, you learned about how to talk to your client, how to get information, now I'm ready to give you the assessment module. Now you're ready to talk about, let's see how severe his addiction is. Let's see what level of care.

And I use the different ones from the different counties like Alameda County, Sacramento County, I have one from Santa Barbara. I've grabbed them from different sources so that students can see a wide variety-- because I have students all over the state-- a wide variety of assessments so that they're familiar, and they can come to that employer and put it on their little resume, I have done an ASI, I have done the CAGE, I have done the DAS, I have done the cross-cutting symptom measures for youth and adults.

They can name all the stuff that they've done because I just don't have them fill it out, they call me up when they finish filling it out, and we go over this assessment together, and I tell them what they'll see, and what they can do to treat that person. So they do it from the true point of view, or they interview someone that they know is an alcoholic, and they actually do all these assessments. So I don't think any other program actually does all that. Or they'll tell you about them, but they don't have work the dittos, they don't have you work the worksheets. I do that for sure, so I'm really giving you a well-rounded program.

So now we're talking about case management. So now that you've just assessed the person, now what do you do with all this paperwork? This module here in the Center for Higher Purpose module 14, we talk about Case Management and Documentation. When a student comes out of school knowing what to do with that folder or that online program, oh my gosh, that's music to any employer's ears. If they don't have to train you to reinvent the wheel, oh my goodness, they're going to kiss you. They love it.

So here we have the things that I will teach you. You can read all this. I'm sure you've glanced over the whole slide. I teach them how to build a treatment plan. When a new counselor comes in and says, I know how to do a treatment plan, and they do it in the way I show it to them, very easy, how to do a SMART goal, they love it. The employers just love it. I really do equip the students well.

We, of course, use-- again, we use the SAMHSA publication to do the case management. I quiz them on the different chapters. Let's see. And we talk about the populations, unhoused, women, men, justice-impacted, DUI populations, cultural populations, lesbian, gay, all those, LGBTQ populations, we talk about them all.

I'm also going to teach the students about-- let me go back to that slide. So check this out. Interagency conflicts. You have no idea how many times people don't realize what they're getting into. But if you can look at the way, the culture of an agency, you save yourself a lot of trouble by going to an agency that you can work at, that you can feel comfortable with. If there's a lot of drama, another clinician-- if it's in the name of their title, chances are it's not a good agency to be going to.

You've got to be choosy on where you work, and I help the students understand, well, what do you like to do? What kind of work do you see yourself-- what kind of population do you like? Maybe you like pregnant moms, OK. Let's work with them. Maybe you like justice-impacted people. Do you like youth or adults? I make sure I tailor all of their case management skills to the field and population they want to serve best.

And then, of course, I teach them all the different processes of screening, treatment planning, intake, all that stuff. They get to learn all that stuff with me. I teach them-- oh, guess what-- so I don't know if you've heard it from any kind of counselor, oh my God, the paperwork is terrible, right?

I taught them the old way using SOAP notes, DAP notes, BIRP notes, and then I taught them the new CalAIM way because that just came out January 1-- I think it was January 1 of this year. So now we have to do it more like a narrative paragraph, which is so much nicer than trying to fit all the little things in all these different acronyms. Aye yai yai, it gets crazy.

But if I don't teach them the old way, they're not going to do the new way any justice. So I'm sorry, but I've got to teach them the old way so that I can present a better way of doing it, and then they can incorporate the old way into the new way. Wonderful stuff. I don't think anyone teaches anyone on that.

So here we are at the Law and Ethics. Now, this module has to be updated all the time because now especially with COVID, we had e-therapy. Now, that was a no-no all the time before all this COVID came out. You could never do any kind of counseling or treatment online. Well, nowadays you can, but we have a different set of ethics for that.

I teach them all about the ethics in doing that. I show them common ethical violations. I'll let you know what not to do in addition to what you're supposed to do because I don't want people to be making clumsy mistakes on my watch, not happening, OK? So you're going to learn exactly what good skills are and bad skills are in every one of these modules because I just can't afford to have my name put out on the street like that where someone comes in and they're making a buffoon of themselves. No, no, no, we're going to try not to do that.

So professional development. We are improving their soft skills. You know those soft skills. How to talk to people. And personal development, check this out. Now, this one, let's look at each of these yellow videos that I have on here. In personal development, I want to build this person up and let them know that they are a different individual than when they even started my courses. So now they're really equipped to become counselors.

Tony Robbins series, "6 Needs That Drive Your Decisions." That's a great video. "Finding your purpose in life," a wonderful video. "14 ways to define your best version of you." Now, I'll remind you, when they look at these videos, they have to give a feedback essay, and they have to answer the questions that come up in these videos. So it's not just watch a 15-minute video and be good, I make them write a feedback essay so I can really make sure that they're applying what they learned.

So not only do they come out as a substance-use counselor, they're coming out as a better individual A more clear, and a more centered individual. So these are really good stuff. "Eight tips on creating a personal development plan." "Personal development plan" with Jim Rohn. "How long does it take to change your life, feeling lost?"

"Finding your way." Many people that come to treatment have not found their way yet. And half the time, my students haven't found their way. But they're trying to, and this is why we work on all this stuff so that they can be more equipped before they hit the field. "6 things I wish I'd learned at age 20." I don't know how old any of you are, but if I knew then what I know now, oh my goodness, life would be so different.

"This is why you don't succeed." What are the things that block our progression? How do we go from one thing to the-- are we doing the same thing over and over all these decades? Enough is enough. "This is why you don't succeed" with Les Brown, wonderful video. And here, "The most eye-opening 10 minutes of your life" with Simon Sinek. I hand-pick every one of these videos, believe me they're wonderful. Wonderful videos.

Now, in my cultural competence piece, we talk about microaggressions. Having bias. "Blind Spots," these four videos, amazing. Assumptions, Overcoming Stereotypes, Enhance Objectivity, Broaden your Perspectives. How many people come in with. I can't tell you what I was taught, but I had to change my whole perspective because I didn't want to come into the counseling field knowing what my dad taught me. No way. And then "The history of LGBTQ," all that stuff. And that's a wonderful, wonderful, lovely little video. It's cartoon, but it is so enlightening. It's wonderful.

OK. Now, this practicum course. This is where we really-- I hone in to every student, and I really run this down to, what do you want to do? Oh, check it out. Look at this. What are the course-- I'm sorry, let me go back to-- 1, 2. One of the course is going to show you 187 models of treatment for addiction counselor training. So 187 models.

There's so many out there, pick one. What resonates with you? I make them tell me what it is out of the 187. 185 common co-occurring issues in addiction. I'll tell you what, no other program teaches you this stuff anywhere. I don't care where you go.

Now, here's our three-hour agency course. This is where I really talk about, what agency would you like to work for, and we develop your resume for that agency or those type of agencies. Now, here is the three-hour agency. "A day in the life of a substance-use counselor" by the Recovery Centers of America. Addiction Counselors, their role in recovery. InterCoast College is one of my competitors, but they did a great video, addiction-- their role in the recovery. It was a great video. I used it.

"What employers look for in addiction counselors" with the Breining Institute. Not the Breiling Institute, that's me, the Breining Institute. "How to dress for success." A lot of times people come in to work and they look like slobs. No, don't dare do that. Put something nice on. You're representing what this person is aspiring to be. You're not a client. "Dress to communicate." It's a Ted Talk. Ted Talks are wonderful. They're really, really good.