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.
Drug and alcohol addiction has become a constant, regular presence in American society. Sometimes it feels as though everywhere we look, in every social circle or group we are involved with, there is someone who struggles with some kind of habit.
One important piece of data is that drug experimentation can be more damaging for young people than adults. Young people tend to be more impulsive, more likely to take risks when under the influence, etc. Furthermore, drug use has a potent effect on the body of a young person, creating great danger for developing an addiction.
When someone struggles with drug addiction or alcoholism, getting that person help becomes the priority. Addiction is a lethal crisis—something that claims the lives of thousands of people every year. There’s no telling when a deadly overdose or accident could come about.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 130 people die from overdoses on opioid drugs every day. Such opioids include pharmaceutical pain relievers, heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic hybrid combinations of different opioid drugs.
Helping a loved one overcome a drug habit or alcoholism is no walk in the park. It can be a real challenge and an ongoing one. When you are trying to help your loved one, trying to convince them to get better, it helps to have tips, tools, and techniques at your disposal.
When we look at the news and general media discourse regarding drug and alcohol addiction, the subject matter is not that encouraging. It is easy enough to find headlines on “The Top Five States Most Affected by Drug Addiction,” or “The Three States with the Worst Drug Overdose Problems,” or “These Ten Cities Have the Most Drug Use in the Country,” and so on.
One of the seemingly unsolvable problems, a paradox of sorts, is whether or not people who struggle with drug and alcohol addiction should be allowed to maintain custody of their kids. It becomes a moral question and a hotly debated one.
The legalization debate is probably one of the most heated and contentious arguments on the subject of drugs. I have a hard time thinking of another topic in the area that is discussed as often or to such a great length as the legalization debate.
Let’s take a minute to openly and honestly ask, “Do we really need to use addictive pharmaceuticals to be healthy? Would it be possible to address physical pain without having to turn to potent prescription drugs?“ Just a cursory glance at news headlines these days will show us…
The issue with opioid pain relievers has the appearance of one of those unsolvable paradoxes. If we reduce access to opioid pharmaceuticals considerably, patients who experience chronic and severe pain issues might not be able to access pain relief. But in that same token, if we continue to accept opioid pharmaceuticals as standard medical practice and utilize them to the degree that we are, millions of Americans will become addicted to them, and thousands will die from overdoses on them. That is the brutal truth of the matter.
As much as parents might not want to think about it, alcohol use is quite prevalent among young people, even those under the age of 21. That is something to be concerned about. We might chalk it up to “just what teens and young adults are going to do,” but we walk on thin ice when we do that. Alcohol use among adolescents can have serious consequences.
What can we expect from the increasing legalization of marijuana? Logically, we can expect much of the same adverse circumstances that surround alcohol consumption. We can expect addiction to marijuana, we can expect far more people using cannabis-based drugs, we can expect a decrease and general downturn in socioeconomic and overall human welfare conditions in the United States.
Drug addiction is no small habit, no simple affliction which can be easily remedied. Getting off of drugs and alcohol takes work, effort, time, commitment, and a powerful determination to get better.
For some time now we have known that our nation’s drug crisis will not resolve with only government action alone. It’s become apparent, now twenty years into the largest addiction epidemic that our country has likely ever seen, that curbing drug addiction within our communities will take community action, as well as federal and state support.
In an age where the legality and use of drugs are heatedly debated, it’s big news when new data comes out regarding a popular drug and the real risks that its use carries. Case in point, there is a new development in the works regarding kratom, a natural, plant-based drug native to Southeast Asia.
Is marijuana addictive? That query is easily one of the most frequently asked questions in the addiction and behavioral health space. I hear it on an almost daily basis. And as for its answer… well, there are as many opinions and viewpoints on that subject as there are people who have them.
In a nation where drug and alcohol addiction has become commonplace, it is not that surprising that addiction would make its way into the workplace. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2017 about 19.7 million people in the U.S. struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.
Innovated, funded, and sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Alcohol Awareness Month was first established in 1987 to help reduce the stigma associated with alcohol addiction. The driving force behind Alcohol Awareness Month was to encourage communities to reach out to the American public every April, for the duration of the month, with information and resources on alcohol, alcoholism, and recovery.
The importance of parents talking to their kids about drugs and alcohol is pretty well-known. But how do we do this? I know for a fact that plenty of experts stress the importance of having these conversations. But few say how to actually have these conversations.
Few challenges are more difficult than when we face the prospect of talking to a family member or loved one who is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction. These issues are some of the hardest. Someone you care about very much is using a substance that will eventually kill them if they don’t stop.
