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.
In the late-1990s and early-2000s, pharmaceutical manufacturers like Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed addictive drugs such as OxyContin, pushing doctors to prescribe them. Today, though it’s known that these companies helped create America’s opioid epidemic, the owners of the companies appear poised to escape accountability.
Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a harmful effect of drug addiction. Given the adverse nature of NAS and the many other harmful side effects of substance abuse, women who struggle with drug use should seek help as soon as possible.
The presence of millions of counterfeit prescription drugs that actually contain fentanyl or other dangerous illicit drugs makes drug abuse more dangerous than ever. Just one pill can kill the unwary. We look at why and where this situation exists.
Many public health experts believed that, partially because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was going to be the worst year yet for drug overdoses. They were right, and final numbers for the death toll exceeded even the most gloomy predictions.
Even though Americans are aware that alcohol abuse is a problem in the U.S., the treatment gap is wider than ever. Reporting suggests that the gap recently went from 10% of alcohol addicts receiving treatment down to just 6%. What must be done to address this serious problem?
Polydrug users may encounter the greatest risks of all drug users as they mix and match their drugs to suit their desires. What they may have lost sight of is how dangerous and even deadly this practice is.
When you see dramatic emotional changes or fluctuations in someone you care about, if these changes make no sense, consider the possibility that short or long-term drug or alcohol abuse may be the cause.
Carfentanil has made the news from time to time over the past few years, but not usually in a way that sparks mass concern from authorities and communities. Sadly, the most recent headline on carfentanil suggests that traffickers are appropriating this drug for mass distribution. That’s definitely something to be concerned about.
While the American family is best positioned for helping an addicted family member get help with a drug problem, one could safely say that it’s the local communities that are best positioned for preventing drug addiction from becoming a problem in the first place. What can community members do to keep their homes and neighbors safe from drug abuse?
Every parent wants a safe and rewarding college experience for their children. But when alcohol misuse and drug abuse are ongoing problems on college campuses which are further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, how can parents ensure their children’s safety?
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.
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.
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?
