Chief Clinical Editor for Narconon, Claire Pinelli
Claire Pinelli has been a teacher and counselor for over 45 years. Claire has always been interested in helping others, even while working on her degree in mathematics. Eventually, Claire took a year off to follow her passion, then returned to finish her degree graduating Cum Laude for Brooklyn College, CUNY.
Throughout the 1970s Claire continued to counsel others, moving to Los Angeles before eventually settling in New York City where she married. While in New York Claire began a new chapter in her life by teaching in the New York City School System, where she helped establish the first computer science curriculum for the New York City School System. Despite her busy schedule, Claire found the time to earn her Master of Science Degree, Cum Laude, in Computer Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York (now New York University).
In 1985 she left New York with her husband and moved to Los Angeles finding herself managing a multi-specialty medical clinic in Los Angeles. As time went on, Claire’s family grew to 3 children and with her husband, they made the decision to move to Northern California for her children to have a quality education. It was here that Claire began one of the most fulfilling chapters in her life when a local Narconon drug and alcohol rehab center asked for her help. She agreed, and it was there she realized her passion and ability to use her counseling skills to help those addicted to drugs and alcohol as well as their families. While there, she was able to put in a standard withdrawal protocol and double the program enrollment.
In 2004 she moved on to work at a larger Narconon facility in Oklahoma. Here she was met with a new challenge. Over the course of her 2-year tenure, Claire saw the enrollment double as she supervised treatment for over 200 clients at a time. Her skills as an administrator as well as a counselor were put to good use as she helped thousands of addicts discover how to live life free from drugs and alcohol. After ensuring a smooth transition, in 2007 she decided to move to Houston, Texas, where she and her family live today. In Houston, she and her husband founded Q.U.A.D. Consultants of Texas, Inc. A Texas corporation whose goal is to help people Quit Using Alcohol and Drugs by treating and educating not only the addict, but the counselors, the family and the facility as well.
Over the years, she never stopped learning and advancing her knowledge and certification to increase her expertise and skill to help others. She became an LADC with Clinical Supervision Certification from the Oklahoma Board of Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselors; an Internationally Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (ICAADC) and a Certified Clinical Supervisor (CCS) from the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium; a Registered Addiction Specialist (RAS) from the Breining Institute in California; and a Master’s Level Certified Addiction Professional and Certified Addiction Professional (MCAP) from the state of Florida.
Claire has been doing talks and lectures on drug addiction and treatment as well as classes for professionals since 2005.
She currently is living in Houston with her family and consulting for several facilities and creating and delivering Board Approved Continuing Education training for professional and lay people alike.
It can be hard to get a straight answer to this question. We'll look at some of the effects of pot and some of the data on traffic accidents and you can decide.
Here's an eye-catching headline: “Where the Nurse Prescribes Heroin." One might think it was the headline to a fictional piece, a dystopian essay or novel on what life would be like if full-scale drug use permeated our society.
It's important to learn the truth about drunk and drugged driving, the harm involved, what precipitates such decisions, and what people can do to prevent the lethal phenomena of under-the-influence driving.
Though millions of Americans struggle with addiction, only a small percentage ever actually get help with qualified treatment. What is the “Treatment Gap?” And how can we close this gap for good?
Oklahoma's lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson revealed the role this company played in encouraging the too-liberal use of opioid painkillers. Witness testimony also pointed to the special way this company profited from increased prescribing – of their own drugs or even drugs from other companies.
People turn to drugs and alcohol for many different reasons. For as many people that there are who are addicted, there are just as many reasons why those people use substances. Addicts are unique individuals. Each one will have his or her story of why they began using addictive substances.
An October 2019 article in USA Today focused on how critical it is that opioid lawsuit settlement dollars are used to treat addiction. This should be a given, to use settlements from pharma companies to treat addicts (especially considering that many addicts would not be addicts were it not for prescription painkillers).
A headline in the New York Times reads, “Shortchanged: Why British Life Expectancy Has Stalled.” With just a glance at the headline, I was hit with a wave of deja vu. Then I remembered I’d written about this subject before, except in the context of American lifespan stalling and receding.
This is a line many families hear when they beg their addicted loved ones to accept their offer of rehab: “Leave me alone. I’m only hurting myself.” While every family member knows this not to be true, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to convince the drug user of this fact.
It’s clear that consuming alcohol can be harmful. In fact, anything beyond infrequent and conservative levels of drinking should be strongly discouraged for health reasons alone. To drink with any kind of frequency is to open oneself up to potential health problems, including addiction.
When you get home from rehab, should you call up family and friends and tell them how great you’re doing now? Should you make a lot of promises about the fabulous things you plan to accomplish? Or should you simply provide real-life proof of your healthier mindset by getting busy being productive and helping others?
We just moved into a new year, a new decade. This is the time when New Year’s resolutions are at their strongest. People are energized, and they’re making plans for personal betterment. But we all know what happens next. Such resolutions are gradually left by the wayside.
One of the major issues with the current U.S. drug problem is the fact that so many people still don’t know all that much about drugs. Millions of Americans still don’t have the data on one of the most severe public health emergencies of our time.
The importance of getting a good night’s sleep is something taught to us as children. And as we grow up, the concept of getting a proper night’s rest develops into a common sense thing which we just sort of know we’re supposed to do.
It is estimated that about 18 million people misuse prescription drugs in the U.S. each year. About 5,480 people abuse such medications for the first time every day . Not all of those who misuse prescription drugs “just once” will become addicted to them. But many of them will.
Why do the sons and daughters of addicts experience a significantly higher likelihood of struggling with addiction later on in life? One could argue that close proximity to substance abuse throughout one's childhood gives one the idea that experimenting with substances is "okay" or "normal."
Most experts agree that addiction is not limited by race, genetics, socio-economic backgrounds or level of education. They may be factors, but there is no one smoking gun that always equates to addiction among them. Except perhaps, the behavior of using substances as a solution to a problem.
Parents sitting down to educate their children on the dangers of drug use may miss the fact that their own homes may abound with dangerous and even deadly abusable substances. The vast majority of parents want to protect their children from drug-related harm.
One of my colleagues is a veteran nurse who works in a hospital in Baton Rouge. He was born and raised in a sparsely populated, underserved area of Louisiana which is now being devastated by the opioid epidemic...
