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.
Can you imagine having to take a drug so that you don’t have to take another drug? It seems a little silly, doesn’t it? Why not just avoid the first drug in the first place? Why do you have to take something else so as not to take the original drug?
When someone who is struggling with a drug habit turns on their local news and hears a report about a “New, lethal strain of heroin” or a “New batch of fentanyl that’s killing dozens of addicts,” their first thought isn’t to mourn such a sad situation or to avoid those drugs.
We might not always realize it, but celebrities (with all of their charisma, wealth, public presence, and connections) possess the ability to make real changes in areas that they feel strongly about. Several celebrities already work hard at supporting, funding, even starting campaigns in various humanitarian, environmental, educational, criminal, or political issues that hit home for them.
When a person is recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, their primary incentive is to heal, to grow, to flourish and prosper, to improve themselves and others, all while avoiding the risk of relapse.
Addiction is a multi-faceted, complex crisis, brought on by several factors and perpetrated by several more. It goes without saying that addiction is a complicated affliction, or else it would not be so difficult to overcome.
Most drug and alcohol rehab centers do more than just get people off the drugs, and if they don't they should. A full rehabilitation process for one’s entire life requires addressing additional factors beyond just getting the individual off the drugs.
Here’s a question that’s likely on the minds of millions of people as I write this. People who struggle with a drug habit, an alcohol habit, with self-medication on pharmaceuticals, with cigarette use, with a bad eating habit, or even with drinking excessive amounts of coffee a day find themselves asking this type of question.
In December of 2018, Yale University released a research paper that outlined the effects of the opioid epidemic on our nation’s children. When we look at the opioid problem, we almost always look at the adults who are addicted to these drugs, who lose their lives from these drugs.
If you’ve kept your ear to the ground on the drug crisis as it currently stands, you’ve likely heard the term “synthetic drugs” several times in the last year or two, particularly “synthetic opioids.” But what are synthetic opioids?
Turn on the news any day of the week and you’ll witness all manner of controversy and “juicy drama.” Let’s face it, drama and controversy sell airtime, regular events and good news do not. So it was really no surprise to me when I turned to U.S.
One concept that gets tossed around is this idea of there being different “levels” of drinking. This could lead to the conclusion that some types of drinking are “okay,” and others are not. You see this show up in common phrases such as “problem drinking,” “drinking to get drunk,” “trouble drinking,” “daily drinking,” “at-risk drinking,” “binge drinking,” “excessive drinking,” etc.
Today, overdose statistics are at all-time highs, and not just with opioids either. Addicts are overdosing on psychostimulants too, drugs like meth, cocaine, amphetamine, crack, etc.
The 21st-century might not have brought flying cars, convenient space travel, or the utopian, science fiction world that many pop culture books and movies from the 1900s might have indicated that it would. But the 21st-century did bring with it a lot of problems.
We can all agree that our nation is struggling with a difficult substance abuse crisis. But what we can’t seem to agree on is how we are going to address this problem. Time and time again, we have the proof displayed for all to see that rampant incarceration, stereotyping, and criminalization of drug users does not work.
When we think of drug and alcohol rehab centers, what is our first thought? Most likely, our first and only thought is that drug and alcohol rehab centers are places where people go to get off of drugs and alcohol.
A growing drug trend has surfaced in the U.S. which supports the use of an organic drug called kratom. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, kratom is the term for the tropical tree (Mitragyna speciosa) . This tree is native to Southeast Asia.
According to The Associated Press , eleven “abuse-deterrent” opioid pain reliever drugs are available, with thirty more in development. Talk to any doctor in America today about pain relief, and odds are you’ll hear the phrase, “abuse-deterrent” more than once.
When we consider the prospect of young adult substance abuse, many factors must be kept in mind. When young people misuse drugs and alcohol, they take on pretty serious risk, potentially even more risk than any other age range does.
It goes without saying that our country has been struggling with a pretty significant drug problem for quite some time now. The United States of America has been a hotspot for addiction, drug abuse, and alcohol misuse for almost two decades in a row.
When the number of drug users in the United States climbs to absolutely unprecedented levels, it is a logical assumption of course that drug use will begin to appear in the workforce.
