He was not chosen to be a counselor, he is there because he is in recovery (15 years sober) and I think Dr. Drew wanted to see , due to Garys erratic behavior what was behind that (turns out its a brain injury from 96)

I have watched the show and Drew has him under control.

Actually CG, he's on as a "life-coach." So, in some capacity, he's a counselor, rather than a patient.

according to Dr. Drews Blog he is a patient.

"He has a confused idea of what’s going to happen, what treatment is, what the experience is going to be about. You can’t be a staff member unless you have a license and have applied to be a staff member. It’s sort of confusing for him"

"Yeah, there’s a grandiosity there…I don’t want to disparage him. I think he genuinely wants to help and genuinely has some serious organic brain problems. And we work through that in treatment. It turns out it has a great deal to do with why he is the way he is"

"Tawny also wonders if Gary’s in the right facility. Was it ever a question of yours that he was in need of additional or different treatment than rehab?

Well, when someone’s admitted to a chemical-dependency unit, they have to be an addict. That’s the criteria for admission. In our assessment of Gary, it was clear that he was an addict, he had all these consequences of addiction. It just wasn’t clear what stages his addiction was in, and whether or not there were psychiatric pathologies and neurological pathologies that would make it impossible to treat him at this level of care. But even before I met this squad of patients, I was prepared to increase psychiatric and psychological services. I just had a feeling. I found last season they could tolerate that, and I wasn’t sure at first how cameras would affect things. It was new territory. But since I found out they could tolerate it, I really wasn’t concerned that Gary was in the wrong unit. I felt like we could figure it out.

Fair enough, CG. He's still dispensing advice and counseling others as someone who's been sober for a while, which is frightening...Thanks for the additional research!