I have seen a lot of employers will screen for drugs and alcohol. I can understand the drug part - if you have used illegal drugs you are out. But what about alcohol? Are they checking if you are drunk right then or have been in the past X amount of time? Is my vodka drinking going to make me miss out on opportunities? Thanks.
Screening for alcohol makes sense. Do you really want someone coming to work drunk?
Screening for drugs someone may have done weeks ago that currently aren’t affecting their judgment, though? Who cares?
I appreciate your response, but my question isn’t regarding the validity of the screening (i.e., should they be done). I am simply asking that if I smoke put and snort coke 2 weeks before the test I will test positive for drugs. No question. I understand that part. My question really pertains to what is involved in the alcohol screening. Can they tell if I have drank in the past 3 months, month, week, etc? Thanks.
Alcohol screening can only look for current amounts in your system at that time. The tests either test directly for blood alcohol content or through breathalyzer screening. I don’t know of any test that can directly test for alcohol use outside of what is in your system at a given time.
Okay, thank you. That seems stupid. Who the heck would come to a drug screen drunk? You would have to be pretty stupid.
Believe me, they’re out there. I go to a Methadone clinic for maintenence and they give breathalyzers because alcohol and methadone can be lethal. Anyways, you would be surprised how many idiots come in there to get their dose and are turned away because they’re too plastered on booze. :smack:
As part of my sole pre-employment drug test, I was administered a breathalyzer. It seemed kind of silly, in my shirt-and-tie interview clothes. I blew a 0.00000
I know a couple of alcoholics that drink every day regardless of what they’re doing that day. Neither ever seems drunk and they both function normally and hold down steady jobs. But, statistically, alcoholics are a bad risk and can seriously skew the medical insurance payouts. It’s like hiring someone with a serious pre-existing medical condition. It doesn’t have to be about job performance, although it obviously could be, it could be about the medical coverage.
Somewhat related to the OP - do most drug tests automatically test for alcohol? For my current job, I received my paperwork on December 31st 1999 indicating I needed to take my drug test within 24 hours. After discussions with a bunch of people who didn’t know the answer to the above question (and being unable to get in touch with any HR-type people at the corp because of the holiday), I spent my my time at the big 2000 new year’s bash watching other people drink… it’s now far enough in the past where a negative answer probably won’t bug me now.