What Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselors Actually Move Into
Occupation move map · Community and Social Service · Also covers: Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors; Marriage and Family Therapists; Mental Health Counselors; Rehabilitation Counselors; Other Counselors
Most career-change advice for substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors is somebody's opinion. This page is not. It is built from 58,121 observed occupation changes in the U.S. Current Population Survey — real people, tracked from one job to the next, not survey respondents describing what they would like to do.
Of every 100 substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors who moved to a different occupation group, here is where they went.
| Destination | Share of movers | Observations | Move type | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational Therapists | 2.9% | 294 | lateral | Observed |
| Home Health Aides | 1.8% | 37 | lateral | Observed |
| Social and Community Service Managers | 1.7% | 61 | lateral | Observed |
| Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare | 1.5% | 96 | lateral | Observed |
| Registered Nurses | 2.7% | 29 | lateral | Thin evidence (fewer than 30) |
| First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 2.5% | 23 | lateral | Thin evidence (fewer than 30) |
| Nursing Assistants | 1.9% | 8 | lateral | Thin evidence (fewer than 30) |
| Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants | 1.9% | 24 | lateral | Thin evidence (fewer than 30) |
The most common destination is occupational therapists, at 2.9% of movers (294 observed transitions); the second is home health aides at 1.8% (37). Neither is a default outcome: the leading move is roughly a 1-in-35 result among people who move at all.
Occupations with a similar skill profile
Ranked by skill similarity from O*NET, not by observed moves. A place to look, not a measured path.
- Child, Family, and School Social Workers
- Health Education Specialists
- Industrial-Organizational Psychologists
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Special Education Teachers, Preschool
Who moves into substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors
The occupations whose movers most often arrive here, by observed transitions.
- Occupational Therapists — 292 observed moves (7.2% of that occupation's movers)
- Dietetic Technicians — 70 observed moves (1.4% of that occupation's movers)
- Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education — 68 observed moves (1.8% of that occupation's movers)
How to read these numbers honestly
These are shares conditional on moving — the denominator is people in this occupation who changed to a different occupation group, not everyone in it. Most people in any given period do not move at all, so this page tells you the direction of movement, not how likely you are to move.
The underlying occupation codes are re-derived from job descriptions at each interview, which manufactures some transitions that never happened. We control for that four ways: we work at coarse occupation groupings rather than fine codes, we down-weight occupation changes not corroborated by an employer or industry change, we prefer the dependent-coded monthly survey over the retrospective annual one, and we shrink thin cells toward a skill-similarity prior. The residual uncertainty is why every row carries its observation count.
A row is marked Observed when at least 30 direct transitions were recorded; Thin evidence when fewer were; and Estimated when none were — the move to that occupation's group was observed, and the split to this particular occupation is allocated by skill similarity, so no share is shown.
Snapshot cps-movegraph-759b8583ddf6, frozen June 30, 2026. Held-out validation: precision@5 of 0.238, against 0.163 for a popularity baseline and 0.154 for a skill-similarity baseline.
What this page cannot tell you
It cannot tell you which of these moves fits your own record. A destination that many movers take is still the wrong move for most individuals — the ranking is population-level, and your last three roles, your credentials and what you actually want change it substantially.
See which of these moves your own experience already supports.
Career Companion reads your résumé and scores these destinations against what you have actually done, not against the population average. Start free →