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.
When we think of how young people are exposed to opiate drugs, what is the first thing we think of? Probably the most likely answer is “peer pressure.“ And not without good reason.
It’s difficult to single out any, one drug as being “the worst drug” of them all. Different drugs have varying degrees of harm for those who consume them. Some drugs are more dangerous than others (take marijuana compared to heroin, for example).
The health and well-being of our young people is something to safeguard. Our youth of today are our leaders of tomorrow. An investment in their future is really an investment in ours, too. As parents, we want our kids to grow up to lead successful, happy, and healthy lives.
A headline in U.S. News caught my eye. It read, “Teens’ Opioid Abuse May Be Gateway to Heroin.” Written by U.S. News contributor Robert Preidt, the article talks about how one type of drug use can lead to another type of drug use.
Naloxone is hailed as a revolutionary medicine, a turning point for the medical industry, a lifesaving approach to opioid addicts, and a solution to the opioid epidemic. Three of those four statements were correct, and one was not.
Summer is upon us, and for most people, this an exciting and fun season. The sun’s out, the temperatures are up, and there is an energy and aliveness in the air. But for some of us, the summertime can bring a bit of a struggle.
When I see a headline in the media about opioid painkillers, the first thing I think of is addiction. And rightly so, as most news stories tend to be about the addictive nature of opioid painkillers, about overdoses, drug crime connected to painkillers, or pharma companies getting busted for their addictive products.
The United States differs from other wealthy nations in that we prefer to incarcerate drug addicts rather than provide effective long term treatment for their addictions.. Take a cursory glance at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’statistics on rates of incarceration for different types of crime. Drug crimes skyrocket above all other crimes on the chart.
Addiction and drug use is a significant health concern. Much of our attention goes to the opioid crisis. The opioid crisis is a national public health emergency, a severe and critical issue that claims tens of thousands of lives every year.
The American incarceration system earns a fair amount of criticism amongst Americans and foreigners alike. And there’s some good reasons for that. For one thing, the U.S. incarcerates its citizens at a rate exceeding all other countries in the world.
Drug and alcohol addiction is tearing our society apart, creating a severe struggle and hardship for millions of American families. While teens and young adults as a demographic do not experiment with hard drugs to the same degree that grown adults do, when this does happen, the effect is devastating. Short of a death in the family, I think it would be hard to find a familial crisis or event that would cause as much grief and trauma as that of a son or daughter succumbing to drug and alcohol addiction.
In my ongoing research, I came across Dr. Nora Volkow’s June 27, 2019 blog post at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Volkow is the director of NIDA, which itself is a part of the National Institutes of Health.
Drug and alcohol misuse at any age carries with it a severe risk not only for the user but for those around them as well. And while drug and alcohol misuse can occur with anyone, at any time, and under just about any circumstances, this life-threatening crisis does seem to affect various demographics differently.
One of the challenges that we face when addressing our country's drug problem is a lack of relevant and current data about the drug problem. It seems that every time we research the drug crisis, we find that the majority of published data on the subject is somewhat dated. Granted, the data might only be five to ten years old. But when examining a severe health issue which changes rapidly and which is also a life or death matter for millions of Americans, not having current data creates a stumbling block for us when we then try to resolve the problem.
Heroin addiction. The term itself brings out feelings of discomfort, sadness, and heartache. It seems like everywhere we turn there is another story of an individual who died from a heroin overdose—a life lost, a family tormented.
There are two different groups of people who seek help for drug and alcohol addiction. The first is the group of individuals who are themselves struggling with drug problems. Then there are those who are seeking help for a family member or loved one who is struggling. These are the moms, dads, spouses, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, etc. People who do not struggle with a drug habit themselves (but who have a loved one who struggles) are often at a loss for what to do. So they turn to the internet for help.
It’s no coincidence that the strides towards the legalization of psychedelics fit right into the footsteps left by recent efforts to legalize marijuana. It seems that our country is edging closer to drug legalization being more broadly accepted. But we know how harmful drugs are, so why is this new wave of legalization expanding the potentially harmful effects of an ever increasing cornucopia of substances.
Dying is just a part of the life cycle. But the circumstances under which people die can be significant, especially when avoidable. Death rates from drugs, alcohol, and suicide are at all-time highs. These death rates are higher than they ever have been since recording for such deaths began in 1999.
