Anthrax killer had unqualified counselor

Very recently I posted on the subject of the error in thinking that being an ex-addict is a "street cred" for being an addictions counselor. Here is a horrifying example of just what I was talking about. Kudos to the authors of this column because "addition grandiosity" is a terrible problem, and a counselor who is a former addict and has a recent DUI is a scary, but not uncommon, scenario.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2008/08/15/2008-08-15_suspected_anthrax_killer_turned_to_unqua.html

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BILL: "OK," writes Trent, "Dr. Dave is a Ph.D. psychologist, but I see that Dr. Bruce Ivins, the researcher who did the anthrax poisoning, had someone like you, Bill, counseling him on his addiction – maybe long on experience, but short on academic credentials, and simply using her own recovery as a cookie cutter cure-all for her paying patients."
DR. DAVE: If the news accounts about Dr. Ivins, the FBI's identified anthrax killer, are accurate, Trent has a sad but valid point. Jean Duley, his chemical dependency counselor, was employed by Comprehensive Counseling Associates as an "entry level counselor," touting her own drug use as her major credential. "You name it," says Ms. Duley, "I did it. Heroin. Cocaine. PCP. The whole nine yards. In 1993, I hit a bottom. I woke up out of a blackout in Southeast lockup in D.C. and didn't know how I had gotten there ... I had a spiritual awakening."
BILL: I've read about her so-called recovery: She just got a DUI ticket last December and was on home detention for 90 days. Were those her graduate studies?

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BILL: So Trent's question would be better phrased as "Why does a newly abstinent counselor (like Ms. Duley) seem to be going it alone with a man so dangerous that even she filed legal papers to keep him away from her?"
DR. DAVE: Duley seems to have been not only Ivins' case coordinator, but also his group counselor and individual therapist. What is particularly alarming is that Ivins was re-entering the community after a four-week stay in a psychiatric hospital.
BILL: So we aren't talking AA or rehab here. He'd been on a special hospital wing for those who are both alcoholic and seriously mentally ill.

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DR. DAVE: Whether hired as an "entry level counselor" like Ms. Duley or serving as a trained volunteer facilitator as you were, Bill, at Scripps, the issue is making sure everyone on a team is appropriately trained for providing addiction recovery services.
BILL: I can't imagine anyone in our peer facilitator group at the McDonald Center who'd had a DUI in the previous year.

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BILL: So, Dave, as the non-degreed member of our own NY Daily News team, let me try to summarize for the worried husband, wife or parent. If you are looking for a recovery counselor, the best ones work as members of a team. Secondly, that team and its health organization are responsible for quality training and supervision of any team member - even volunteers or peer mentors. Anything else?
DR. DAVE: It is important to avoid the trap of thinking that your way of recovery is THE way of recovery – taking yourself (as Ms. Duley seems to have done) as the template for everyone else is one of the symptoms of addictive grandiosity.