Paula G. Spera

My journey into addiction counseling is deeply rooted in my own personal experience. My family struggled with addiction, including my father, and I struggled with it myself. I always knew I wanted to give back and help people, but I just didn't know how I was gonna do it. I had no interest or thought to be a drug counselor initially, but then I met some homeless man one day, and I just started having a random conversation with him, and I just knew from there that that was the route I wanted to go. I've been in this field for 6 years now, and I just recently started at a new organization, which is a learning curve and another part of growing and gaining more experience. In my prior position, I was doing searches, completing assessments, meeting with patients for one-on-one sessions, holding groups, escorting them to rehabs, and doing home visits. At this new organization, we do toxicology screening, sit with clients, and refer them out if they need housing, education, or vocational services. It's more therapeutic, I would say. The work is very rewarding, but if you don't take care of yourself, it could lead to burnout. One of my proudest achievements was passing my CASAC exam because that exam was not easy, and in 2024, I won an award for saving lives at my prior organization, which was pretty cool. I attended Touro University for my undergrad, and I started a little bit of my master's there as well because I want to go into full-on social work and work with kids in Child Protective Services. I took time off to focus on getting my CASAC so I could move on and up in my career, and now I'm planning to re-enroll next fall to finish my master's so I can keep moving up and keep going.