Drug and Alcohol Training: What the Smell of Alcohol On The Breath Should Mean To Supervisors

!: Drug and Alcohol Training: What the Smell of Alcohol On The Breath Should Mean To Supervisors

Don't let drug and alcohol training miss this fine point: Your employee may be steady as a rock, but an employee with high tolerance to alcohol can be totally drunk and appear sober as a judge.

So you smell alcohol on the breath, but your employee says he or she didn't drink before coming to work. It might be true, but it doesn't matter. Alcoholics with liver problems will stay drunk for hours on very little booze because their metabolic rate slows due to the dysfunctional operation of the liver. Recommendation: Do a drug screen anyway.

Does your organization have an alcohol and drug policy that prohibits employees from coming to work after drinking? What about drinking at lunch and then coming back to work? Can they drink a couple martinis and then come back to the work site stone drunk as long as they don't look like it? Here's the point: Not all plastered employees appear drunk. If they are late stage alcoholic, they won't appear drunk, even if pushing 2-3x the legal limit.

This is a big problem for many companies whose zero tolerance policies don't add up.

The fact is that many employees with one martini under their belt may act drunk, but not be alcoholic, while true alcoholics placing your company at risk may appear completely sober after several drinks.

Many hospitals for example have alcohol and drug policies that prohibit day-time drinking, but these same hospitals often excuse their medical staffs. Why? The answer is simple. The rate of alcoholism among doctors is twice that of the general population according to research. Doctors run hospitals. They are the money train. That means appeasement.

On average, 14% of the doctors in hospitals are diagnosable alcoholics in early or late stages, or in remission and recovery. There is no way to predict what percentage have their work performance affected. Still, how are you going to address this issue without an effective drug-free workplace policy.

Alcohol and the issues that surround them make it difficult to decide how to handle alcohol use during the workday. It is important to consider these issues:

In Great Britain 25% of the workforce drinks alcohol at lunch! Although they have drug testing laws based upon reasonable suspicion, alcohol on the breath is not a legal criteria for a test! Incredible!

The smell of alcohol is a legitimate "symptom" that can be objectively identified. The supervisor does not have to worry that it could be "something else." It any case, it is the employee's burden to prove that it is something else because safety demands that it not be the other way around. The drug test is how the proof is provided. The Supreme Court has ruled the drug testing does not violate privacy rights - period.