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.
Every year it seems, there is a new drug on the market, a new substance that is addictive, dangerous, even lethal. The new substance that is making headlines this year is Xylazine, a powerful animal tranquilizer that’s being mixed into opioid drugs, often without addicts knowing it.
The changes of the last several years must be tracked and understood if we are to reverse the terrible losses imposed on our country by those who make and traffic in fentanyl.
New information reveals a direct connection between negative health outcomes in newborns and mothers who used cannabis while pregnant. Yet even while this information is coming into the mainstream, other research suggests that more women are using cannabis while pregnant than in recent years.
Though alcohol is widely accepted and its use is normalized in our society, there are several harsh truths about the substance that the American people must be made aware of.
America has been jailing people with drug problems en masse for 40+ years. This has been a widely unworkable approach to this country’s addiction crisis, proven so repeatedly by a wealth of research and study.
According to research data, there are new findings that suggest that as a doctor prescribes more opioids to a patient, the risks for addiction, overdose, and other adverse outcomes increase.
Parents and freshmen may be so excited about college that they overlook the threats the new student faces. Alcohol alone claims 1,500 student lives each year. New students must be properly prepared for the challenges.
According to a recent study, young people use drugs more than their parents did when their parents were young. By itself, this is concerning. But it becomes even more concerning when we find out what types of drugs the young adults of today are using.
Most people understand that consuming alcohol dulls the senses. What is less well known, however, is that drinking alcohol to excess can, over time, cause permanent damage to the senses.
The destructive nature of drug addiction has never been more apparent than it is right now. Recently, the CDC recorded the highest death toll from drug overdoses for any 12-month period. What will it take to curb the rise of drug deaths in America?
A March 2021 report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented information suggesting fatal drug overdoses happen at a higher rate per capita in urban communities than in rural communities. But how can this be the case when urban communities generally have better access to healthcare services and addiction treatment than rural areas?
When we create a culture that normalizes alcohol consumption to a point where about 85% of the adult population drinks, the stage is set for alcohol misuse and all of the harms that come with it. Research indicates that per capita alcohol consumption in a country is a crucial predictor of how much alcohol misuse will occur in that country. That’s why it’s important to look at both excessive drinking AND “normal” drinking.
People who are addicted to drugs and alcohol experience multiple hardships due to their addiction. And in the last year, life has become even more challenging as increased isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic has created an additional burden for struggling addicts.
As the years go by, the types of drugs that users experiment with change. Since the turn of the century, the American people have fallen further and further into an addiction crisis which has been brought on primarily by a gradual shift towards highly addictive, extremely dangerous, even lethal, illegal synthetic drugs.
While any type of alcohol consumption carries some risk for harm, consuming alcohol as a coping mechanism for anxiety creates a considerable risk for addiction. No one should use alcohol as a method of “dealing with anxiety.
It’s long been thought that physical exercise is a healthy activity for recovering addicts. But what does the science say? As it turns out, there’s a growing body of data that suggests exercise helps recovering addicts stay sober.
Despite all the efforts throughout the community to keep drugs out of kids’ hands, bottles of cough medicines sit in many medicine cabinets—cough medicines that can get youth high and even threaten their lives.
