I am in a drug treatment program and have been sober for 101 days now,about 2 weeks ago I tested positive for opiates and at the time I did not know that a poppy seed muffin could give this result,otherwise I would have never ate it.so I paid for further testing,and also went out of my way and did a hair test,the hair test came back NEGATIVE for the last 90 days(that is all the farther it can go back) and the UA came back under the treatment center threshold(which means I did nothing wrong)because of this “incident” I am being punished at treatment as if I did something wrong.they are holding me back from my graduation and making me do extra work,my question is…how do I handle this?I want to write a letter to the director and ask to be moved from the group I am now in,or at least let my counselor know how upset I am that she is doing this to me,but when I tried to talk to her,her reaction is she is trying to help me and she says I am making myself look quilty by my actions.she says the UA says maybe or maybe not using and the hair test says no so she is going to take it as she is not sure and move on…How can she do this to a recovering addict?? Is it me and just taking this too personal,or am I being unfairly punished? 
I have been to a number of rehabs and I can understand how your could get upset about this. What I would suggest is that you take a deep breath and try to carefully consider the situation. What is important is for you to get the most you can out of rehab, not when you graduate or whether you consoler thinks you are guilty or not. Many people get hyper-sensitive when under the stress of rehab and its natural to try and distract yourself with things that are unimportant in the long term.
You will be out of the treatment center soon enough and then you probably will never or hardly ever see any of these people ever again. Go with the flow, don’t get yourself all worked up and keep in mind what is important. Try also to keep in mind that you want to focus on why you are there and if you focus on unimportant things you are losing out on something that might benefit you! Good Luck!
I agree with Evil Joe, but fuck them anyway. Best of luck to you.
Being accused of something you did not do is really annoying.
It sounds to me as if your counsellor does not exactly believe you, for her, disbelief is probably an occupational hazard.
The best I can think of is getting a short, well written, letter into your file.
I think you need to try and not take this personally.
Working with recovering people is difficult. Addicts will lie, cheat and do just about everything and anything under the sun to get away with their habit. You know it was just a poppy seed muffin but the last guy that claimed it was a poppy seed muffin really did use while in rehab. That’s what they have to consider, that you could be lying.
It’s unfair, yes. Life is unfair and little stuff like this happens all the time on some level or another. Suck it up, do the extra work, be as true to your program as you know you are. The rest will sort itself out.
Above all remember the serenity prayer and the fact that the only thing you can change is you, your actions, your attitudes.
Did the treatment center serve the poppy seed rolls? If they did, can you perhaps contact the higher ups and point out that they need to rethink their menus as well as reconsider their infraction system?
How much of a read would a poppy seed roll actually show? I mean, if we’re talking junkies here, wouldn’t the level from a poppy seed roll be inconsequential as far as a buzz goes? You’d need to knock over a bakery to get a comparable number, no?
For most people, yes. But once morphine is into the body you can’t tell for sure where it came from.
Sure, you can look at the ratio of morphine to codeine and thebaine and tell when and what the person probably had, and that might be good for null hypothesis drug tests, where the assumption is the person is not a drug user.
But I don’t know of a way to tell between, say, a poppy seed muffin eaten a day ago versus a shot of morphine injected 3 days ago and taken with an amount of codeine to make it look like poppy seeds. And drug treatment programs have zero tolerance.
But the main issue here is, I think, what drug treatment program wouldn’t warn its participants about the intake of poppy seeds?
I still say a little blip on the screen from poppy seeds wouldn’t even remotely look like a fix of heroin or morphine or codeine…particularly when you’re being regularly tested! It looks like a case of Zero Tolerance Gone Stupid again. I mean, the hair test came out negative, which would mean that the OP didn’t take something three days ago (unless I’m mistaken on how soon the drug would show up in hair).
Besides the fact that MY treatment program did not warn me of it,I am also heavily involved with social services,and before the conformation test even came back my counslor told socil services that I failed the test,then when I submitted the hair test results(which are to the trillions and a UA is only to the billions) the still insist on punishing me…am I in the wrong here…or taking this too personal because of what is at stake?
How did the social services folks react to the negative on the hair test?
Key point.
I will not find out until court in 1 week,but right now I am trying to do everything that I am supposed to do to get my son back,it just seems like everyone is working aginst me,I am trying to look at the positive side of things,but it is getting harder to do.
I’d say this is probably the case. Understand that she probably talks to twenty people a day who insist that they are completely innocent even if they were caught in the act. Unfortunaltely, you may end up getting the shaft on this one, not because of anything you’ve done, but because the workers at this facility have been screwed over dozens of times by people who convinced them they were telling the truth.
The only hope you have of convincing people who are in these kinds of fields is to remain calm, polite and cooperative. I know that’s not easy when it’s your life at stake but the more you argue and the more upset you get, the less likely they are to listen to you. Veracity is not proven by vehemence.
We covered this topic only a few weeks ago. As a guest, you don’t have the ability to search. Go here —> http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405571&highlight=poppy+seed
Watching Seinfeld would have prevented your mistake. Elaine failed a drug test after eating breakfast also. Good luck with your case!