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 college, we think of institutions of higher learning. We think of places that our young adult sons and daughters go to expand their knowledge, to flourish, to grow intellectually, and to develop their life goals and ambitions.
Just a cursory glance at the news or CDC documentation will tell us that addiction can be and often is a fatal condition. Drug use is currently one of the top causes of preventable deaths in the United States.
It has been common knowledge for some time that women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should not consume drugs, drink alcohol to excess, or consume tobacco. All three of these activities are not only harmful to Mom’s health, but such activities also pose a risk to her unborn or infant child.
One of the most telling indicators of the overall health of a nation’s population is its life expectancy. When a population’s life expectancy improves, this is a sign of overall improvement for that country. When a country’s life expectancy falls, especially after a period of steady growth in life expectancy, that is something to be worried about.
Addiction is the health crisis of the century for millions of Americans and their families. A cursory examination of the addiction epidemic timeline reveals that pharmaceutical opioids played a huge role in the creation of the epidemic.
Heroin is an illegal and highly addictive drug. It is both the most abused and the most rapidly acting of the opiates. Heroin is typically sold as a white or brownish powder or as the black sticky substance known on the streets as “black tar heroin.”
Recovery from heroin abuse and heroin addiction begins with finding a drug and alcohol rehab program which address not only the physical effects of heroin use, but provides tools for a successful recovery.
Learn to spot the signs of heroin addiction. Find out the signs and symptoms of heroin addiction before it’s too late. Spotting the initial signs of heroin addiction can save lived.
Our country is more familiar with drug overdoses than we perhaps ever have been. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70,237 people died in the U.S. from drug overdoses in 2017. That’s the highest that number has ever been in our country.
While drug overdose deaths climbed from 16,800 to more than 70,000 over a 20 year period, was America’s response appropriately strong and determined? If not, why not?
People seek drugs for all kinds of reasons. Some are trying to find an escape from a struggle or difficulty that they are facing in life. Others are peer pressured by their “friends” into using drugs. Some want to experience something different, something that makes them feel good.
In July 2019, Pharmaceutical company Reckitt Benckiser Group settled a federal lawsuit that they fraudulently marketed their addiction treatment drug Suboxone. They’ll pay a huge fine but why doesn’t this settlement actually result in justice?
A healthy lifestyle is always preferred over an unhealthy one. As we go through life, we try to be as healthy as we can. Those intentions are, of course, strongly affected by a wide variety of factors. These include socioeconomic condition, genetic endowment, upbringing, geographic location, peer environment, available resources, etc. Still, we do the best that we can with the resources available.
For the first time in decades, the number of Americans lost to drug overdoses has begun to decline. Is this cause for celebration? Not yet. Not when you know the reason for the decline. Did you hear about this? For the last year, the number of overdose deaths has been declining.
There’s a problem with the readily-available information on statistics related to America’s drug abuse and drug overdose situation. And this problem could be skewing the way many of us perceive this situation and reducing our sense of urgency in seeking effective solutions.
Every year, tens of thousands of people die from drug overdoses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2017, a little over 70,200 people lost their lives due to overdoses.
The often false, painful and confusing narrative of how a person becomes addictive is at the center of much debate. For many years, addiction was seen as a problem for the inner city, or the morally weak. Worse, when a person didn't fit this narrative, they were labeled with different terms.
The headlines in U.S. News last week read, “Americans Spent $146 Billion on Illegal Drugs in 2016.” That’s a shocking figure. It’s a figure that drives home just how enormous our country’s drug problem is. But at the same time, a figure like that creates a lot of questions.
Who doesn’t want to make informed decisions? Have you ever paid for a product or service on a whim and then regretted it after finding out the product or service wasn’t really what you wanted? You probably would not have made the purchase had you been more informed on what you were buying.
When we turn on the news and read about our nation’s drug addiction crisis, we are inundated with information about the opioid epidemic. We hear tag lines and keywords like “opioid overdoses,” “opiate addiction,” “the opioid epidemic,” “the opioid crisis,” and so on.
