Charles “Chuck” Hudak, CADC III, is a certified addiction counselor and Lead Substance Abuse Counselor at Tree House Recovery in Costa Mesa, California, where he leads one of the program’s treatment teams. He is a graduate of the Tree House program.
Charles has held California alcohol and drug counselor certification from CCAPP since August 2021 and reached the CADC III level in August 2025. He earned a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton, in May 2024 and is now completing a Master of Social Work there.
“I’m a certified alcohol and drug counselor working toward my Master of Social Work at California State University, Fullerton. I use a biopsychosocial-spiritual, strengths-based perspective to help people understand themselves within their social, physical, and structural environments. I teach clients about substance use disorder and human psychology so they can become experts on their own lives, including how their addiction developed and what keeps it going. My work is grounded in humanistic theory: I see clients at their best and at their full potential, not as their addiction or their history.”
— Charles Hudak, CADC III, Lead Substance Abuse Counselor, Tree House Recovery Costa Mesa
Charles works from the premise that behavior in treatment often reflects older, unresolved pain. “When someone lashes out or struggles to connect, it’s not really about the moment—it’s often about the past. They’re not yelling at a peer on the beach; they’re reacting to pain that started long before,” he says. He helps clients name those patterns so they can move from reacting to understanding.
Charles is a partner and father. Most evenings he reads counseling and psychology material connected to the clients he is working with that week. Before leading a treatment team, he worked on the Physical Empowerment team that runs Tree House Recovery’s fitness-based and action-based therapy sessions.
Charles has been in recovery since December 2017. He entered Tree House Recovery as a client that month and completed the program in May 2018. He describes what brought him back as staff: “It was the fellowship—having real friends again, people I could rely on and who relied on me. This wasn’t a place that just helped you get clean and sent you on your way. They cared about what came next. They helped me level up—not just get well.” Lived experience contributes to Charles’s perspective on recovery and is distinct from the clinical credentials listed below.
Charles completed Tree House Recovery’s program in Costa Mesa in May 2018 and joined the staff in July 2019 as a Physical Empowerment Counselor, working on the team that runs the program’s fitness-based and action-based therapy sessions. He registered as an alcohol and drug counselor trainee with CCAPP in August 2019, earned his CADC I in August 2021 and advanced to CADC II in August 2023.
In January 2024, Tree House Recovery named Charles Lead Substance Abuse Counselor for one of its treatment teams. He completed his B.A. in Psychology at California State University, Fullerton, in May 2024 and advanced to CADC III in August 2025. He is now completing a Master of Social Work at Cal State Fullerton, with an expected finish in spring 2029.
Charles says of the program: “This is the groundbreaking stuff that is actually going to make a difference in people’s lives. I believe in it, and I want to be able to contribute to the research, contribute to the statistics, and the evidence that this is what addiction treatment needs—places like Tree House.”
Charles works with adult men in Tree House Recovery’s Costa Mesa program, including:
Yes. Charles Hudak holds a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor III (CADC III) credential from the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP), credential ID B00003950425, valid from August 9, 2025, through August 9, 2027. He has held CCAPP certification since August 2021. His NPI is 1104786995.
No. Charles is a certified addiction counselor, not a licensed therapist. He is clinically supervised by Robert Mo, CADC II, ICADC, Clinical Program Director at Tree House Recovery, and is completing a Master of Social Work at California State University, Fullerton.
Yes. Charles has been in recovery since December 2017. He completed Tree House Recovery’s program in May 2018 and joined the staff in July 2019.
Since January 2024, Charles has been Lead Substance Abuse Counselor for one of Tree House Recovery’s treatment teams in Costa Mesa, California. He joined the staff in July 2019 as a Physical Empowerment Counselor on the program’s fitness-based therapy team.
His CADC III is listed in the CCAPP public registry under credential ID B00003950425, and his NPI, 1104786995, is listed in the national NPI registry.