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.
As long as I have been working in the field of addiction recovery, the entire industry from the top to the bottom has been playing a massive game of whack-a-mole. That’s the carnival game where a mechanical animal head pokes out of a panel with multiple holes in it.
While America has been preoccupied with other situations, our drug overdose losses have kept mounting. Using statistics published by the CDC we can calculate the date on which America passed a horrific milestone: 100,000 overdoses losses in one twelve-month period.
A South Carolina prosecutor is using a federal grant to send drug addicts who’ve committed nonviolent crimes into treatment programs, not incarceration. It is becoming more and more common for people addicted to drugs to be directed towards treatment, not jail.
Do you know how to identify when a friend or loved one is struggling with addiction? If someone you know is relying on drugs or alcohol to get through their life, you can help them by spotting the real source of their problems.
Heroin is not a new drug. It’s been a life-threatening substance plaguing the streets of America for decades. But a fatal overdose is not the only risk of using heroin. New data shows that users who smoke heroin are at risk of serious brain damage.
The litigation of Purdue Pharma/the Sacklers is now over. One of the key aspects of the case that deserves full scrutiny is that Purdue’s owners threatened to withdraw settlement funds if they did not achieve personal immunity. In the end, they won.
Words and terms like “epidemic,” “pandemic,” and “national health emergency” have become commonplace in American society. These terms often make one think of the dangerous spread of communicable diseases and illnesses. Yet with almost 200,000 deaths in 2020 from drug-related causes and alcohol-related causes, is it time to look at addiction as America’s next National Epidemic?
In recent years, a movement has grown in both the U.S. and Canada to recognize the alleged “benefits” of hallucinogenic drugs. The language surrounding this movement is dangerous because it serves to normalize drugs that have known harms and long-term risk factors.
Some teens are choosing to vape marijuana products because they are nearly undetectable. But both parents and teens alike should know the damage that’s occurring to the lungs as a result of vaping marijuana, tobacco or simply flavored oils. This damage has been fatal for dozens of people.
Employees struggling with drug or alcohol abuse rob every company of their profitability as well as risking their own lives. When companies take on the role of identifying abuse and offering help, they can save valued employees and increase their own productivity.
It’s shocking but true. In several states across the U.S., when fatalities are measured per capita, more Americans are dying from drug-related harm in counties designated as rural than in counties designated as urban.
We know that families suffer terrible losses as a result of drug or alcohol abuse and addiction. But how does this situation affect our nation's health as a whole? We will catalog some of the impacts of this social problem.
Some people are able to maintain the appearance of productivity for quite a while after they become addicted. This ability has generated the myth of the high-functioning addict. Is there really such a thing?
Xylazine is in the news for causing overdoses, deaths and addiction in several U.S. states and Puerto Rico. But many people don’t even know it’s in their supplies of heroin, fentanyl or cocaine. In this case, what they don’t know can kill them.
Consider this: Purdue Pharmaceuticals/the Sacklers versus thousands of plaintiffs nationwide. It was one of the most closely watched pharmaceutical litigations of our time, and it just came to a close. While there were some small victories in the case, many see its outcome as a loss for those who suffered at the hands of Purdue’s addictive opioid painkiller, OxyContin.
Truly understanding our losses to drug overdoses means taking a longer look at the numbers. That’s where the tragedy becomes crystal clear, along with the necessity to take more immediate action.
Using marijuana by itself presents risks. But when other drugs are added into that marijuana, the substance becomes far, far more dangerous. Sadly, that’s exactly what is occurring in cities all across America.
Anyone who has loved an addicted person knows: Addiction comes with enormous costs. Some of these costs are emotional and mental. The addicted person suffers from the overwhelming compulsion to use drugs and the physical sickness and deterioration that accompanies the use of alcohol and drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
When a pregnant woman uses illicit drugs, drinks alcohol or misuses prescription drugs, they immediately increase the risk of birth defects. That’s why it’s vital to help pregnant women and women of child-bearing age find an effective rehab program as soon as possible. We’ll take a look at some of the risks.
To prevent your home from becoming a source of addictive substances for a young person or susceptible family member, it’s important to know all the types of drugs that should be locked away and where someone might be looking for them.
