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.
We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” When I went off to college and traded my parents’ home-cooked, farm-grown three meals a day for cheap cafeteria food, boy did that distinction become apparent. But I think we can take that old saying a step further. Yes, you are what you eat.
The conversation on heroin has almost always centered on overdose and for a good reason. The statistics on heroin overdoses are frightening (more on the statistics later). But now a new threat has appeared on the horizon. Now, it’s not just overdosing that addicts and their family members and loved ones have to worry about.
We’ve come to see that drug addiction is a highly dangerous, and potentially lethal situation. Not only that, drug addiction is a lot more common than it used to be. In my research, I happened across a statistic I hadn’t seen in a while, and I was reminded of just how big the problem has grown.
For decades, the War on Drugs, part of a punitive, incarceration-based system has been the state and federal approach to crimes of drug possession and drug use. But a recent story in USA Today talked about a community in the Chicago area that is offering an olive branch to addicts.
Every year it seems, there is a new drug on the scene or a new strain of a drug that is even worse than the last one. Case in point, reports are coming in from the Southeast about a new type of methamphetamine that is so potent it’s killing users. They’re calling it Meth 2.0.
A new study from the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology has drawn a link between alcohol consumption before pregnancy and future, congenital birth defects.
According to a U.S. News article, 70,237 drug overdose deaths occurred in the U.S. in 2017. That number was up 10.4 percent from the 63,632 people who died from drug overdoses in 2016. Overdose deaths are on the rise in America, and they have been since the turn of the century.
We’ve known for a long time that there can be adverse effects of alcohol consumption. And when we hear about the health implications of drinking, it almost always has something to do with the over- consumption of alcohol (an event known as binge drinking).
Almost two decades into the 21st century, it's easy enough to look back and see our accomplishments thus far. The innovation of robotic limbs, evidence of water on Mars, advancements in HIV cures, inventing new tech to use water as a clean energy source, the list goes on and on.
A recent news report in U.S. News opens with, “Due to population growth and aging, the number of cancer cases worldwide is expected to jump 60% by 2040 – but unhealthy lifestyle habits are likely to make the surge even larger.” That’s a pretty shocking statement.
One would hope we were approaching a point where the American people and the medical industry is fully aware of the risks and dangers connected with opioid painkillers. “Opioids are a last resort for chronic pain management.”
The most recent headline is on fake opioid pills. Granted, this is not exactly a new story, as fake opioid pills have been popping up on the American market for years. But a recent drug bust on the Eastern Seaboard serves as a grim reminder of how dangerous fake opioid pills are.
As it turns out, a pretty disturbing news story in USA Today is causing a lot of people to rethink copious alcohol consumption while on vacation. The article talked about a case out of Costa Rica, in which “tainted” batches of alcohol caused 25 deaths and more than two-dozen non-fatal poisoning incidents.
Is there a seasonal factor in drug overdoses? New research from Brown University seems to suggest so. We’ve heard of the negative aspects of winter. We know about the uptick in depression and the poor mental outlooks that seem to get worse during cold temperatures and gray days.
When we consider our drug problem here on U.S. soil, it’s difficult to imagine a drug crisis like this occurring somewhere else. The U.S. drug addiction epidemic has expanded and grown over the last twenty years, developing into a health crisis, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
What is it about driving down certain roads that just makes us feel better? Or why do we feel that unique calm wash over us when we walk through a park we’ve been coming to for years? Conversely, what is it about a stroll by our old school that brings out a whole mixed bag of emotions? Or the frustration we feel when we drive by a business we got let go from?
All you have to do to get the public in an uproar about something is to talk about how dangerous that thing is for young people. And that’s perfectly understandable. We are inherently inclined to protect our young. When it becomes evident that something is potentially dangerous to our youth, millions of parents across the country rise up and demand change.
Marijuana legalization has increased across the nation throughout the last twenty-some-odd years. We are now seeing the side effects of that legalization and the harm it has had on American communities.
Schools are increasing their drug-testing programs. When I saw that headline mentioned in a recent article in U.S. News, it caught my eye. School drug testing is undoubtedly an effort to combat the growing drug epidemic. It’s an effort to protect our kids from drug use.
