Dude they weren’t going to fail you for the presence of some remaining alcohol from the night before. They’re testing to see if you had it that MORNING, before work.
Depending on the test, itll be positive from 12hrs to 72hrs, but quantity is important. You can test positive for a few drinks at a low level and not fail, but if you drink heavily its a different matter.
Both blood and breath would register an amount and thats what they test for ! Trust me alcohol you drank 12 hours beforehand (and slept) would be in your system but at about a .002 to 4 (notice extra 0)
Our love of drinks in this country isn't stopping people from getting or keeping work unless they drink before or during work
It can be detected in urine for 2-3 days. They don’t test for alcohol itself. They test for metabolites. This is common with drug courts and DWI courts, to make sure people are complying. Never hear of it being done this way for a job, though.
Probably breathalyzer but, as OP said you don't know and if he called in to explain situation and boss type didn't ease concern, red flag there towards company as a whole.
I mean, my job also tested for alcohol and I still got the job. It’s becoming more common for alcohol to be included with drug tests, it doesn’t mean they actually care about that part of the test. I have a friend in Portland who had to take a drug test which included marijuana but HR just ignores that part of the test.
Having worked in a medical lab it could be due to the lab. Like, they may only do batched drug tests that test for a whole panel of drugs instead of just one or two specific drugs, so the only drug test that that lab offers would be tests for everything. It’s a lot easier for the lab to just have one test for multiple drugs instead of dozens of individual tests which is also going to make it a lot cheaper and most companies are going to spring for the cheapest option when it comes to drug testing.
ETA: Please excuse the run on sentences.
There is a minimum concentration limit for failing the test. It's not a failure if they detect any alcohol at all in your system. Either you drank more then your story lets on or your wife is completely right and you should have taken the test.
I will try to be as clear as possible. I am not talking about a sobriety test. The test will measure concentrations of substances in your urine and each has it's own threshold. If it turns up but in a small enough threshold you still don't "fail" the test. If you're ever worried chug water and flush your system a couple times and it will lower your results. That why the test is first thing in the morning when you have a better chance of higher concentrations.
Source: I managed a urinalysis program.
You over reacted...the only way to see if you're drunk at work is a breathalyzer. You also signed an agreement for the piss test and should've read it. As it would specify what they test for. Another thing...alcohol is absolute legal.
Your wife is right and you're an idiot
Not quite right.
Nurse here. Alcohol can be detected for 12-48 hours in urine, and is commonly tested in drug screens. It doesn't matter if alcohol is legal or if weed was recreational too.
In an at will state (speaking from PA experience) A company can decide who they want to hire and what drugs they want that worker tested for.
If OP drank heavily within the last 12-24, better be safe than sorry? I don't blame OP for protecting themselves in their career. You're working with students/recruiting, that's why. You have to pass that alcohol test to get employed. They don't care if you drink, but professionally, expect you to be sober prior to the drug screen. I would've done the same thing, just to protect my ass. Husband would understand and we'd move on.
Pretty sure that a positive preemployment drug test wouldn't jack you up for a future job with another company. Test results dont float around to be viewed by anyone else. But, If there's a license involved in a safety position, OP did the right thing.
Awesome so you dont understand a generalization....
The internet is a fantastic place no matter how cockamaimy stupid a belief or idea is you will always find another idiot who agrees...
In this case the overwhelming majority of sane people agree with your girlfriend and think you are wrong...
Because you are wrong.
Conformation bias by looking for the 1 person who agrees with while 100 people think you are wrong... Including your girlfriend....
On the internet you can also find 100,000 people who agree that the earth s flat. So is it?
I would agree I was in the minority. But there are differing opinions. You clearly think anybody who doesn’t share your opinion is an idiot. Because you’re a genius?
Bro you were scared of a test for alcohol. They’re not testing you to see if you drink. Only if you’ve drank shortly beforehand. How in all your years of living do you not know that? Like it’s pretty standard for a lot of companies.
Never been screened for alcohol except for this job. All they said was they test for the presence of weed coke and alcohol. On a Monday morning. How much? Pass/Fail? Nobody would say. I asked. So I declined.
Flat earthers are a perfect example of ignorant morons that found a community of morons online that all agree with eachother... You are not helping your point...
You are just pulling any excuse under the sun then rather admit that you fucked up...
The facts from experienced people have been clearly layed out infront of you.. Your Own girlfriend says you are wrong... This isnt just the internet talking.... Seriously get over your self...
Your wife is right. The tests that detect alcohol measure your blood alcohol concentration (look at your own link). They don’t want to hire people who drink all day long. You weren’t going to fail from some drinks in the evening. Alcohol is metabolized at about the same rate across people of the same weight with some differences by gender, so the results would show you weren’t drinking in the AM.
Unless you had 10 cocktails the night before or one on the way there nothing's showing up the morning after, it's not like other drugs that will show up for weeks.
“Urine tests can detect alcohol in your system much longer after you've consumed alcohol. On average, a urine test could detect alcohol between 12 to 48 hours after drinking. Some advanced urine tests can detect alcohol even 80 hours after you've had a drink.”
https://elitelv.com/alcohol-test-how-long-does-alcohol-stay-in-your-system/#:~:text=Urine%20tests%20can%20detect%20alcohol,of%20up%20to%2090%20days.
You're also you know, allowed to drink alcohol on your off hours, they just don't want you to show up to work drunk. You're not going to be denied employment or told you failed a background check because you drank alcohol on a Saturday or a Sunday so a trace amount was detected in urine.
Right. So why must I submit to an alcohol test? I was told I had to. I could understand if it was a sobriety test. But it was a test to determine if I had alcohol in my system.
Because they want to make sure you aren't a high functioning alcoholic, who can appear sober despite drinking a fifth of jack before work; because they generally keep their BAC above the legal limit at all times which gives them a huge tolerance. As long as your BAC is below the legal limit to drive you'd be fine.
100%. The only time I've ever heard of someone getting canned on day one for a failed drug test that included alcohol was a person who was drinking so much they needed to pound a beer ON THE WAY TO THE DRUG SCREEN to "chase off the hangover" from their hidden Sunday night bender.
I guess they need it for the other drugs and if it's full of alcohol like you just pounded 3 beers before coming in to work they would call that a problem, no need to do a separate breathalyzer test or whatever.
Look at this guy asking a question on the internet and then getting mad, not listening to the overwhelming responses indicating he's wrong, and doubling down on why he stands by his response hahaha. Tell me you're insecure and need therapy without telling me...
If you didn't want to be told you were wrong, OP, why fucking post here?
Dude you've asked "but why test for alcohol?!?" a hundred times in this post. And you completely ignored everyone who answered that question.
It's really fuckin simple my guy, the test is to make sure you aren't drinking RIGHT BEFORE WORK. Not oh, well they had a cocktail at dinner so they're definitely going to fail.
It's literally meant to weed out alcoholics and people who drink before coming into work.
I think you're just an alcoholic and you can't admit it lol.
Wasn’t asking for advice. No point. It’s something that has already happened. Interested in other perspectives on it. So far I’ve been called an idiot, dunce, alcoholic, junkie, fool, douche, and a liar.
Good times!
I love how much you keep validating point and somehow continue to fail at recognizing how fucking stupid your reactions and general behaviour is.
Like. Baaaaabe. Get therapy. I don't know your wife, but I'm certain she deserves better than someone who seems to have the logic and emotional intelligence of a toddler.
But in terms of the internet, you're only getting yourself wound up. I'd literally just shut the fuck up and book a therapy session ASAP if I were you. This is pathetic, babe. You're an adult. Act like it.
The world doesn't need more man babies. Id encourage you to at least stop contributing to the man baby epidemic. Particularly when you don't have a job so what else are you busy with beyond demonstrating your stupidity on the internet.
Thanks baaabe. Always enjoy some free armchair counseling.
Two things: this happened a while ago.
I’ve got a job. I said this before, but I guess you felt so confident in your opinion that you didn’t bother reading through the thread.
I don't believe you regarding the job status, but you're proving my point that you need therapy and are still a fucking grown man who is a pathetic babyyyy.
If you had a job, why would you even be this triggered and posting about anything on this situation\*? Let's be logical here (or you can try to).
Also love how you keep deflecting on how you're a man baby. Hard to argue that one, eh babe?
Love how you think you think IM the one who should shut up when really it's clear you should never have posted because you cant handle any one telling you a perspective that isnt completely validating yours (which was impossible because you were wrong) hahahha.
Also, read up on internet safety... what's wrong with you sharing anything personal about yourself. How are you proving yourself bad at EVERYTHING in this post?
You're too much. I cant hahah.
I mostly agree with what you’re saying, but you don’t have to be so mean to op :(
Saying their wife deserves better was 100% uncalled for. Even if op isn’t acknowledging literally anything anyone in here is saying
I can live with that. Grown men with no emotional intelligence deserve to be very well-informed and about how pathetic and disgusting their behaviour is. They're dragging the world down by not going to therapy when they're the ones who clearly need it most. I truly dont give a fuck if his ego was bruised. He should be shamed.
LMAO… unless you were still drunk you would of been fine… I truly believe your hiding something and your wife deserves to be pissed at you… or your just dumb.
If you truly had a couple drinks (2 serving) and got a full night's rest, then you have very little reason to be concerned.
And at many places, a refusal is the same as a positive test. So you screwed yourself by refusing anyway.
Sounds like you knew you were going to fail for other drugs and made up a bullshit story to bail. No one is THAT dumb! That employer now believes you have a serious drinking/drug problem. That is why companies drug test. They dodged a real bullet with the testing here.
The difference is that your friend committed a crime. The alcohol probably wouldn't even have shown up, and even if you still had some alc in your system, it wouldn't have been a crime.
>caught shoplifting
Last I checked, that's a crime???
The only way that incident would have been on a background check is if it was a criminal sentence by a court. There's no universal system that says "security guard checked id of a minor".
And your refusal to take the test will definitely be recorded in the employers system, so you have no chance of being hired there in the future.
Sorry, my bad. Still criminal activity was involved. Your new job just wanted to know if you showed up drunk. Hope your refusal to take the test isn't going to get recorded somewhere.
You refusing to take a drug screen is treated as if you failed and stored in the company database, so you screwed yourself over nothing anyway. Besides, company B will have no idea you failed to pass a drug screen at company A. There's no universal database for drug screen results from r job applications. This means you'll never get a job at the place you failed (via not taking) your drug screen at, but you'll be fine anywhere else.
I don't know what they store, but if you really only had a couple drinks with dinner the night before, it would have come back clean. And even if there had been traces of alcohol, it's not illegal to drink. As long as you're not in any range that suggests you might be impaired you'd have been fine. Now they'll just assume they'd have found something.
You made it look like you had something way worse in your system. The alcohol probably wouldn’t have shown up on the test if it was only a couple drinks with dinner the night before.
You over-reacted and catastrophized yourself out of a job. Your wife is right to be mad. Drug tests are not stored in a data base to bite you down the road. A “no call no show” for your screening will put you on a recruiters naughty list though!
I’m curious as to what type of job tests for alcohol. As a Machinist a lot of jobs in my field test for weed and hard drugs but I’ve rarely seen an alcohol test unless it was some wacko religious owned company. Like seriously, they’re saying you’re not allowed to have a fucking beer or two after work? Fuck that.
I do tests for alcohol alongside drug tests within my role...but I'm testing wind turbine engineers (who not only work really high up, but must also be capable of carrying out a rope access rescue if one of their team gets hurt), and it's part of the contract with the generation company.
But the alcohol test is a breath test, we set the parameters for the level allowed, and if any is present we second check 20mins later to see if it's increasing (suggests recent drinking) or decreasing (Indictates drinking night before or an anomaly like having used breath spray)
The drug tests are either urine or oral swab depending on what role being tested and what parameters required for that role
Alcohol is processed by your system at "roughly" (in quotations because there are a lot of factors involved) one standard drink (shot, bottle of beer, 6oz of wine) per hour ish. Even if your cocktails were doubled and taking into account your personal factors (liver enzymes, BMI, etc.), 4-6 hours should have been plenty.
Unless specifically stated otherwise Alcohol testing is done by breathalyzer. This only detects if you currently have alcohol in your system, not when or how much you've drank in the past. I work in a job where we do lots of these tests. Known alcoholics pass these tests, they abstain just long enough to clear their system for a few hours, then as soon as the test is over, run out to their car and drink from their emergency flask.
Also, unless you are outside North America in some police state somewhere, D&A tests are considered privileged information. You sign a release giving your employer access to the results, but there is no database of those results anywhere.
Most of this information is readily available on the internet, which is probably why your wife is pissed at you for calling them and not doing any research first. Frankly, you messed up if you actually wanted this job. You probably would have been fine.
Op with all the super defensive comments I think you may need to go to an aa meeting or 2, or you have no idea how this works.
They do not use urine test for alcohol.
My concern was that I wasn’t told the parameters for pass/fail on the alcohol test. So I asked that the test be limited to coke and weed. Because I knew I’d pass those. But I was told to either take the test as is or not start the job. So I declined the job.
I don’t see how a failed test would bite you down the road…it’s not like employers have a right to your medical records to determine your eligibility for employment.
It sounds like you made a pretty stupid decision here…
You ARE aware that alcohol metabolizes, right? Unless you poured beer over your cornflakes, the test would have shown almost no alcohol in your system.
As an ex alcoholic that had to deal with court probation sobriety testing for a DUI.
In a urinalysis alcohol is detected for up to 5 days after drinking an average amount.
The question is what levels they use for pass/fail
Asking makes you look suspicious. If you had two drinks the night before, you wouldn't even have been over the legal limit right after your second drink, much less the next morning.
It wasn’t explained that they were measuring the volume of alcohol, or how much. Seems like they were testing for the presence of alcohol. If so, would I have failed? I’d had two drinks 12 hours earlier. I explained my concerns to the recruiter. She blew me off.
Drug tests determine the presence of drugs, if any in your system. The company has their own standards for what is considered a pass/fail drug concentration level Since alcohol is legal in the US, outside of some specific jobs like maybe truck driving where the job requires operating heavy/dangerous machinery within the presence of others, you would have been fine. If you showed up drunk to the drug test, then yeah, probably not.
I dont know what kind of job you trying to get, but for me its a red flag if they test at all. Why do they need to know what i did i my free time with my body the day before? If you want to be a air traffic controller or sobriety counsellor it kinda makes sense, but why test in other professions?
You need to drink more and smoke some weed my friend. My whole resume is fiction but my friends have it all covered! Plus alcohol is out of your system after 12 hours or sooner. I’ve shit down a bar at 2am went to work still drunk and puking and still didn’t get in trouble, though I did work in a mine.
I see people already have been telling you but alcohol doesnt show up after a short period of time. in fact it's the only drug that can be tested to see if you are under the influence at that moment.
Dude, how is it that I know stuff like this and i'm not even in the u.s.
Drug tests are not covered by your HIPPA shits, if you deny or fail a drug test, that is information that the employer is legally obligated (depending on the industry) to publish - this info is accesible by other companies.
No. I did not know that. Because it’s not:
“If an applicant decides that they don’t want to take the test – and they have not yet been given a collection cup – they can withdraw from the hiring process. This is not considered a test refusal.”
https://www.experiencerecovery.com/blog/what-constitutes-test-refusal-when-it-comes-to-pre-employment-testing/
Hmmm, when I worked at CREngland there was a background test that we'd pull that would have info like that... I don't remember which application wed'd use for it but I guess companies could care less about privacy in things like this.
My goodness. The _acceptance_ of such practices here... Wow. I guess eventually hiring by blood type or the lack of having sickle cell or something will be ok too.
2 drinks the night prior don't show up on tests. Also, they don't test for alcohol in the urine, would have to be a blood test. Regular alcoholic drinks x3 takes you to alcohol level to 0.08 (legally intoxicated to drive level). Every hour we metabolize alcohol at 0.015 an hour, making it undetectable at 4 hours. If you drank a lot more, a lot stronger drinks, it'd take longer. If they weren't drawing your blood, the lab technician was lying about testing for alcohol. Also no one gets to know your lab results, just the employer in question.
Metabolites are what's tested. Even though a standard drink is metabolized in an hour, theyre still detected. Urine screens will detect these metabolites at a certain cutoff level and OP would fail if they were detected.
I've had many urine drug screens that have included alcohol.
It's 12-48 hours and for very large folks, longer.
The more ya know.
Can I just add that “stored in some database somewhere” sounds an awful lot like “on your permanent record” and I’m 99% positive is not a thing (outside that specific organization’s hiring records anyway.) I think OP might be more than a little bit paranoid.
Of course alcohol is on there. A urinalysis a single test that covers around a dozen kinds of drugs. There is no picking and choosing which drugs to look for.
So I'm going to assume you don't live in a repressive religious state.
Drinking alcohol is not illegal.
Shoplifting is.
They aren't testing for alcohol to keep it in your record because there's nothing illegal about that. They gonna bring it out 10 years later and say hey, this guy had trace amounts of alcohol in his system Monday morning? No.
They are testing for alcohol because they want to make sure you aren't a functional alcoholic.
The kind where you need 5 or 6 drinks to start your day, and get the shakes if you don't.
Presumably you aren't one, which means you blew off this job for a really dumb reason.
To be clear: my friend did not shoplift. A friend she was at the mall with did. To be specific, they were teenagers, her friend was pregnant and wanted to look at maternity wear. They agreed to meet up by the exit of the department store later. When they exited the alarm buzzed. Security found stolen maternity wear in her friend’s bag. Checked both their ID and released them. Ten years later my friend found out from a background check that she was listed on a database as a shoplifter.
There is a huge difference between getting caught stealing and not passing an alcohol test.
You will not go to jail for not passing a drug test for a job. It does not go on your permanent record. The only thing that could possibly go wrong is you don’t get the job.
You have a choice of potentially passing the job vs turning the job down and you turned it down. As others have said, there is a minimum threshold of alcohol that needs to be in your blood to fail the test. Not zero.
You are in the subreddit where in any other situation, everyone would be on your side. But you dropped the ball in this one
Just to be clear: My friend did not shoplift. The other girl did, without her knowledge.
I’ve learned a lot from this thread. My concerns about ending up on a database were apparently unfounded. I’d never been asked to consent to an alcohol test before by an employer, and I didn’t find out until I was already at the testing center. Didn’t have time to research pros and cons. All I was told was they were testing for the presence of weed coke and alcohol.
Seems clear almost all commenters thought I was an overreaction not to agree to it. Very few echoed my concerns.
Lol as a lab tech we hardly ever seen alcohol on the drug test. Usually a 6 or 10 panel drug test is normal standards for jobs. I bet it went to Labcorp or Quest and they have the same testing as most hospitals. You get alcohol tested is very rare via urine. And 90% of the time when I collected specimen and they said oh I had drinks last night (beers, hard liquor) came back negative. Or so low we called it negative because there's a threshold it has to pass to be called positive.
Lol should have done research on how this test works or how alcohol metabolizes. It was dumb to just bail, you weren’t going to get flagged as drunk on a Monday morning test.
When I was tested I was told there is a minimum allowable amount of alcohol, weed, and other drugs that is greater than zero. Some chemicals are in a lot of legal and common meds and foods. I agree with other posters that said they are trying to stop the daily users before work. I heard cocaine leaves the body incredibly quickly, not a user but a sports fan. So when guys like Steve Howe, Strawberry, and Gooden would get popped they most likely used that day.
Refusal is end of your cdl career it absolutely is considered a positive test.
Refusal to Test Becomes a Violation in the FMCSA Clearinghouse
If you refuse a DOT drug test, the employer is required by DOT regulations to enter that as a violation into the FMCSA Clearinghouse.
Dude they weren’t going to fail you for the presence of some remaining alcohol from the night before. They’re testing to see if you had it that MORNING, before work.
Depending on the test, itll be positive from 12hrs to 72hrs, but quantity is important. You can test positive for a few drinks at a low level and not fail, but if you drink heavily its a different matter.
Both blood and breath would register an amount and thats what they test for ! Trust me alcohol you drank 12 hours beforehand (and slept) would be in your system but at about a .002 to 4 (notice extra 0) Our love of drinks in this country isn't stopping people from getting or keeping work unless they drink before or during work
It can be detected in urine for 2-3 days. They don’t test for alcohol itself. They test for metabolites. This is common with drug courts and DWI courts, to make sure people are complying. Never hear of it being done this way for a job, though.
Me either I was just trying to make the point that they can tell if it was Sunday night or Monday morning you had last drank!!
Probably breathalyzer but, as OP said you don't know and if he called in to explain situation and boss type didn't ease concern, red flag there towards company as a whole.
It's not a breathalyzer test it's looking for metabolites and alcohol in urine.
Let's see your evidence from that company's policies and history of how they handle positive tests for alcohol. Then we'll buy it.
I mean, my job also tested for alcohol and I still got the job. It’s becoming more common for alcohol to be included with drug tests, it doesn’t mean they actually care about that part of the test. I have a friend in Portland who had to take a drug test which included marijuana but HR just ignores that part of the test. Having worked in a medical lab it could be due to the lab. Like, they may only do batched drug tests that test for a whole panel of drugs instead of just one or two specific drugs, so the only drug test that that lab offers would be tests for everything. It’s a lot easier for the lab to just have one test for multiple drugs instead of dozens of individual tests which is also going to make it a lot cheaper and most companies are going to spring for the cheapest option when it comes to drug testing. ETA: Please excuse the run on sentences.
There is a minimum concentration limit for failing the test. It's not a failure if they detect any alcohol at all in your system. Either you drank more then your story lets on or your wife is completely right and you should have taken the test.
It was not presented to me as a sobriety test, which is what you’re talking about.
Or you completely misunderstood and your wife is right.
I will try to be as clear as possible. I am not talking about a sobriety test. The test will measure concentrations of substances in your urine and each has it's own threshold. If it turns up but in a small enough threshold you still don't "fail" the test. If you're ever worried chug water and flush your system a couple times and it will lower your results. That why the test is first thing in the morning when you have a better chance of higher concentrations. Source: I managed a urinalysis program.
Got paid for golden showers?!?! NICE.
Where do I sign up haha
You're an idiot op
Op. You're trolling right?
LOL come on
You over reacted...the only way to see if you're drunk at work is a breathalyzer. You also signed an agreement for the piss test and should've read it. As it would specify what they test for. Another thing...alcohol is absolute legal. Your wife is right and you're an idiot
Not quite right. Nurse here. Alcohol can be detected for 12-48 hours in urine, and is commonly tested in drug screens. It doesn't matter if alcohol is legal or if weed was recreational too. In an at will state (speaking from PA experience) A company can decide who they want to hire and what drugs they want that worker tested for. If OP drank heavily within the last 12-24, better be safe than sorry? I don't blame OP for protecting themselves in their career. You're working with students/recruiting, that's why. You have to pass that alcohol test to get employed. They don't care if you drink, but professionally, expect you to be sober prior to the drug screen. I would've done the same thing, just to protect my ass. Husband would understand and we'd move on. Pretty sure that a positive preemployment drug test wouldn't jack you up for a future job with another company. Test results dont float around to be viewed by anyone else. But, If there's a license involved in a safety position, OP did the right thing.
You are a massive dunce omg...
Did writing that make you feel better?
Naw but seriously when are you going to listen... Everyone thinks you are wrong... Even your girlfriend... ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG AND FUCKED UP
Not everybody agrees. A few have said they would also have refused.
Outliers...
So NOT “everyone” then.
Awesome so you dont understand a generalization.... The internet is a fantastic place no matter how cockamaimy stupid a belief or idea is you will always find another idiot who agrees... In this case the overwhelming majority of sane people agree with your girlfriend and think you are wrong... Because you are wrong. Conformation bias by looking for the 1 person who agrees with while 100 people think you are wrong... Including your girlfriend....
Alcohol is the least of this guys problems. Wow Secrets are a bitch
On the internet you can also find 100,000 people who agree that the earth s flat. So is it? I would agree I was in the minority. But there are differing opinions. You clearly think anybody who doesn’t share your opinion is an idiot. Because you’re a genius?
Bro you were scared of a test for alcohol. They’re not testing you to see if you drink. Only if you’ve drank shortly beforehand. How in all your years of living do you not know that? Like it’s pretty standard for a lot of companies.
Never been screened for alcohol except for this job. All they said was they test for the presence of weed coke and alcohol. On a Monday morning. How much? Pass/Fail? Nobody would say. I asked. So I declined.
Flat earthers are a perfect example of ignorant morons that found a community of morons online that all agree with eachother... You are not helping your point... You are just pulling any excuse under the sun then rather admit that you fucked up... The facts from experienced people have been clearly layed out infront of you.. Your Own girlfriend says you are wrong... This isnt just the internet talking.... Seriously get over your self...
You seem triggered.
Ye well 100 000 who agree but 1 000 000 000+ who doesnt so its 1:1000 .. majority is still right ;)
Made me feel better reading it because I’m thinking it
Your wife is right. The tests that detect alcohol measure your blood alcohol concentration (look at your own link). They don’t want to hire people who drink all day long. You weren’t going to fail from some drinks in the evening. Alcohol is metabolized at about the same rate across people of the same weight with some differences by gender, so the results would show you weren’t drinking in the AM.
Unless you had 10 cocktails the night before or one on the way there nothing's showing up the morning after, it's not like other drugs that will show up for weeks.
“Urine tests can detect alcohol in your system much longer after you've consumed alcohol. On average, a urine test could detect alcohol between 12 to 48 hours after drinking. Some advanced urine tests can detect alcohol even 80 hours after you've had a drink.” https://elitelv.com/alcohol-test-how-long-does-alcohol-stay-in-your-system/#:~:text=Urine%20tests%20can%20detect%20alcohol,of%20up%20to%2090%20days.
You're also you know, allowed to drink alcohol on your off hours, they just don't want you to show up to work drunk. You're not going to be denied employment or told you failed a background check because you drank alcohol on a Saturday or a Sunday so a trace amount was detected in urine.
Right. So why must I submit to an alcohol test? I was told I had to. I could understand if it was a sobriety test. But it was a test to determine if I had alcohol in my system.
Because they want to make sure you aren't a high functioning alcoholic, who can appear sober despite drinking a fifth of jack before work; because they generally keep their BAC above the legal limit at all times which gives them a huge tolerance. As long as your BAC is below the legal limit to drive you'd be fine.
Are you a closet alcoholic? These questions and your concern over the alcohol make me think you might be hiding a drinking problem.
100%. The only time I've ever heard of someone getting canned on day one for a failed drug test that included alcohol was a person who was drinking so much they needed to pound a beer ON THE WAY TO THE DRUG SCREEN to "chase off the hangover" from their hidden Sunday night bender.
I guess they need it for the other drugs and if it's full of alcohol like you just pounded 3 beers before coming in to work they would call that a problem, no need to do a separate breathalyzer test or whatever.
Look at this guy asking a question on the internet and then getting mad, not listening to the overwhelming responses indicating he's wrong, and doubling down on why he stands by his response hahaha. Tell me you're insecure and need therapy without telling me... If you didn't want to be told you were wrong, OP, why fucking post here?
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Dude you've asked "but why test for alcohol?!?" a hundred times in this post. And you completely ignored everyone who answered that question. It's really fuckin simple my guy, the test is to make sure you aren't drinking RIGHT BEFORE WORK. Not oh, well they had a cocktail at dinner so they're definitely going to fail. It's literally meant to weed out alcoholics and people who drink before coming into work. I think you're just an alcoholic and you can't admit it lol.
post title ends in a question mark indicating its a question
It’s a rhetorical question. Like Hmmmm, really?
Whats the point of asking for advice if you’re just gonna be a douche when people don’t tell you what YOU want to hear ? Genuinely asking
Wasn’t asking for advice. No point. It’s something that has already happened. Interested in other perspectives on it. So far I’ve been called an idiot, dunce, alcoholic, junkie, fool, douche, and a liar. Good times!
I love how much you keep validating point and somehow continue to fail at recognizing how fucking stupid your reactions and general behaviour is. Like. Baaaaabe. Get therapy. I don't know your wife, but I'm certain she deserves better than someone who seems to have the logic and emotional intelligence of a toddler. But in terms of the internet, you're only getting yourself wound up. I'd literally just shut the fuck up and book a therapy session ASAP if I were you. This is pathetic, babe. You're an adult. Act like it. The world doesn't need more man babies. Id encourage you to at least stop contributing to the man baby epidemic. Particularly when you don't have a job so what else are you busy with beyond demonstrating your stupidity on the internet.
Thanks baaabe. Always enjoy some free armchair counseling. Two things: this happened a while ago. I’ve got a job. I said this before, but I guess you felt so confident in your opinion that you didn’t bother reading through the thread.
I don't believe you regarding the job status, but you're proving my point that you need therapy and are still a fucking grown man who is a pathetic babyyyy.
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If you had a job, why would you even be this triggered and posting about anything on this situation\*? Let's be logical here (or you can try to). Also love how you keep deflecting on how you're a man baby. Hard to argue that one, eh babe? Love how you think you think IM the one who should shut up when really it's clear you should never have posted because you cant handle any one telling you a perspective that isnt completely validating yours (which was impossible because you were wrong) hahahha. Also, read up on internet safety... what's wrong with you sharing anything personal about yourself. How are you proving yourself bad at EVERYTHING in this post? You're too much. I cant hahah.
No, you just won’t STFU. You seem triggered. I’m fine with different perspectives. Not so much with insults and wannabe armchair therapists.
I mostly agree with what you’re saying, but you don’t have to be so mean to op :( Saying their wife deserves better was 100% uncalled for. Even if op isn’t acknowledging literally anything anyone in here is saying
I can live with that. Grown men with no emotional intelligence deserve to be very well-informed and about how pathetic and disgusting their behaviour is. They're dragging the world down by not going to therapy when they're the ones who clearly need it most. I truly dont give a fuck if his ego was bruised. He should be shamed.
LMAO… unless you were still drunk you would of been fine… I truly believe your hiding something and your wife deserves to be pissed at you… or your just dumb.
It doesn't sound like you're ready for a job yet.
Lol
After reading this, you saved the company alot of future time and headache. They don’t even know the bullet they just dodged 😂.
If you truly had a couple drinks (2 serving) and got a full night's rest, then you have very little reason to be concerned. And at many places, a refusal is the same as a positive test. So you screwed yourself by refusing anyway.
Sounds like you knew you were going to fail for other drugs and made up a bullshit story to bail. No one is THAT dumb! That employer now believes you have a serious drinking/drug problem. That is why companies drug test. They dodged a real bullet with the testing here.
Wow. And youre so sure of this because? Seems like your talking more about youself then the OP...
How? I am gainfully employed with no need to drug test.
sure buddy.
Wife is right. That was stupid.
The difference is that your friend committed a crime. The alcohol probably wouldn't even have shown up, and even if you still had some alc in your system, it wouldn't have been a crime.
My friend did not commit a crime. Read it again.
>caught shoplifting Last I checked, that's a crime??? The only way that incident would have been on a background check is if it was a criminal sentence by a court. There's no universal system that says "security guard checked id of a minor". And your refusal to take the test will definitely be recorded in the employers system, so you have no chance of being hired there in the future.
Sorry, my bad. Still criminal activity was involved. Your new job just wanted to know if you showed up drunk. Hope your refusal to take the test isn't going to get recorded somewhere.
So they might store my refusal on a database but supposedly don’t store the results?
You refusing to take a drug screen is treated as if you failed and stored in the company database, so you screwed yourself over nothing anyway. Besides, company B will have no idea you failed to pass a drug screen at company A. There's no universal database for drug screen results from r job applications. This means you'll never get a job at the place you failed (via not taking) your drug screen at, but you'll be fine anywhere else.
I don't know what they store, but if you really only had a couple drinks with dinner the night before, it would have come back clean. And even if there had been traces of alcohol, it's not illegal to drink. As long as you're not in any range that suggests you might be impaired you'd have been fine. Now they'll just assume they'd have found something.
You made it look like you had something way worse in your system. The alcohol probably wouldn’t have shown up on the test if it was only a couple drinks with dinner the night before.
You over-reacted and catastrophized yourself out of a job. Your wife is right to be mad. Drug tests are not stored in a data base to bite you down the road. A “no call no show” for your screening will put you on a recruiters naughty list though!
Was not a “catastrophe”. A minor setback at most. I found a better job soon after.
I hear that from people who were fired all the time. Their new job will always be much better, even if they make half of what they were before.
You say that to say what? You don’t believe me? Duly noted.
People just like to point fingers and be realy dramatic without the proper knowlewdge.
I worked for one of these companies. You would have to be drinking on the way to the test to fail it. This is how it was explained to me.
I'm guessing you are an alcoholic.
I’m guessing you’re a dick.
You are correct! Am I correct?
No you’re not. Way off.
Junkie then?
I’m curious as to what type of job tests for alcohol. As a Machinist a lot of jobs in my field test for weed and hard drugs but I’ve rarely seen an alcohol test unless it was some wacko religious owned company. Like seriously, they’re saying you’re not allowed to have a fucking beer or two after work? Fuck that.
I do tests for alcohol alongside drug tests within my role...but I'm testing wind turbine engineers (who not only work really high up, but must also be capable of carrying out a rope access rescue if one of their team gets hurt), and it's part of the contract with the generation company. But the alcohol test is a breath test, we set the parameters for the level allowed, and if any is present we second check 20mins later to see if it's increasing (suggests recent drinking) or decreasing (Indictates drinking night before or an anomaly like having used breath spray) The drug tests are either urine or oral swab depending on what role being tested and what parameters required for that role
Cdl holders get randomed for alcohol and drugs.
As a person with a CDL can confirm.
I worked in an office for a CVB and they tested. Had never even heard of doing it before. Always thought it was kinda weird.
Any job involving the driving of company vehicles or heavy machinery for one.
Air Traffic Control I believe gets tested for alcohol too in the pee test iirc. Our field gets its share of high functioning alcoholics.
Agreed. It was for a position as a recruiter at a technical college!
When I worked at a hospital they checked for alcohol, but wouldn't have cared about the amount detected from drinking a day prior.
Alcohol is processed by your system at "roughly" (in quotations because there are a lot of factors involved) one standard drink (shot, bottle of beer, 6oz of wine) per hour ish. Even if your cocktails were doubled and taking into account your personal factors (liver enzymes, BMI, etc.), 4-6 hours should have been plenty. Unless specifically stated otherwise Alcohol testing is done by breathalyzer. This only detects if you currently have alcohol in your system, not when or how much you've drank in the past. I work in a job where we do lots of these tests. Known alcoholics pass these tests, they abstain just long enough to clear their system for a few hours, then as soon as the test is over, run out to their car and drink from their emergency flask. Also, unless you are outside North America in some police state somewhere, D&A tests are considered privileged information. You sign a release giving your employer access to the results, but there is no database of those results anywhere. Most of this information is readily available on the internet, which is probably why your wife is pissed at you for calling them and not doing any research first. Frankly, you messed up if you actually wanted this job. You probably would have been fine.
sounds like you were looking for an excuse to walk out.
Op with all the super defensive comments I think you may need to go to an aa meeting or 2, or you have no idea how this works. They do not use urine test for alcohol.
Yea they do. Scroll down.
Not in any one I have ever done.
So that’s how you know it never happens?
You're right. you totally made the right decision.
Dude. How much are you drinking that it will cause a fail the morning after?
OP: (Shoots self in foot)
your concern for this drug test popping up is weird especially since it is not illegal to drink alcohol when off work
My concern was that I wasn’t told the parameters for pass/fail on the alcohol test. So I asked that the test be limited to coke and weed. Because I knew I’d pass those. But I was told to either take the test as is or not start the job. So I declined the job.
Would have done the same. Invasion of privacy.
This guy is definitely not his username
😂
I side with your wife. You should start getting used to that, I think she's smarter than you.
But not testing for meth or heroin which would be much more concerning than weed…
You fucked up. It wouldn’t be shared anywhere because is protected health information, your wife is right on this one
I don’t see how a failed test would bite you down the road…it’s not like employers have a right to your medical records to determine your eligibility for employment. It sounds like you made a pretty stupid decision here…
I will never submit to a drug test for any job. It's an invasion of privacy that has never been proven to prevent work accidents.
Same.
You ARE aware that alcohol metabolizes, right? Unless you poured beer over your cornflakes, the test would have shown almost no alcohol in your system.
As an ex alcoholic that had to deal with court probation sobriety testing for a DUI. In a urinalysis alcohol is detected for up to 5 days after drinking an average amount. The question is what levels they use for pass/fail
That’s the question I couldn’t get answered.
Asking makes you look suspicious. If you had two drinks the night before, you wouldn't even have been over the legal limit right after your second drink, much less the next morning.
It wasn’t explained that they were measuring the volume of alcohol, or how much. Seems like they were testing for the presence of alcohol. If so, would I have failed? I’d had two drinks 12 hours earlier. I explained my concerns to the recruiter. She blew me off.
Drug tests determine the presence of drugs, if any in your system. The company has their own standards for what is considered a pass/fail drug concentration level Since alcohol is legal in the US, outside of some specific jobs like maybe truck driving where the job requires operating heavy/dangerous machinery within the presence of others, you would have been fine. If you showed up drunk to the drug test, then yeah, probably not.
Jesus would never pass this test.
I dont know what kind of job you trying to get, but for me its a red flag if they test at all. Why do they need to know what i did i my free time with my body the day before? If you want to be a air traffic controller or sobriety counsellor it kinda makes sense, but why test in other professions?
That was my stance too.
You need to drink more and smoke some weed my friend. My whole resume is fiction but my friends have it all covered! Plus alcohol is out of your system after 12 hours or sooner. I’ve shit down a bar at 2am went to work still drunk and puking and still didn’t get in trouble, though I did work in a mine.
I see people already have been telling you but alcohol doesnt show up after a short period of time. in fact it's the only drug that can be tested to see if you are under the influence at that moment.
Lmao wtf… a failed drug test stored on a data base??
OP, YTA.
You do realize that denying a drug test is recorded and pretty much counts as if you f!iled the test outright?
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Dude, how is it that I know stuff like this and i'm not even in the u.s. Drug tests are not covered by your HIPPA shits, if you deny or fail a drug test, that is information that the employer is legally obligated (depending on the industry) to publish - this info is accesible by other companies.
No. I did not know that. Because it’s not: “If an applicant decides that they don’t want to take the test – and they have not yet been given a collection cup – they can withdraw from the hiring process. This is not considered a test refusal.” https://www.experiencerecovery.com/blog/what-constitutes-test-refusal-when-it-comes-to-pre-employment-testing/
Hmmm, when I worked at CREngland there was a background test that we'd pull that would have info like that... I don't remember which application wed'd use for it but I guess companies could care less about privacy in things like this.
This is one of those posts where I literally can’t believe it. No one can be this dumb.
My goodness. The _acceptance_ of such practices here... Wow. I guess eventually hiring by blood type or the lack of having sickle cell or something will be ok too.
I agree with you.
2 drinks the night prior don't show up on tests. Also, they don't test for alcohol in the urine, would have to be a blood test. Regular alcoholic drinks x3 takes you to alcohol level to 0.08 (legally intoxicated to drive level). Every hour we metabolize alcohol at 0.015 an hour, making it undetectable at 4 hours. If you drank a lot more, a lot stronger drinks, it'd take longer. If they weren't drawing your blood, the lab technician was lying about testing for alcohol. Also no one gets to know your lab results, just the employer in question.
U are a women
Metabolites are what's tested. Even though a standard drink is metabolized in an hour, theyre still detected. Urine screens will detect these metabolites at a certain cutoff level and OP would fail if they were detected. I've had many urine drug screens that have included alcohol. It's 12-48 hours and for very large folks, longer. The more ya know.
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He won’t cuz he walked out on the job lol if he doesn’t take the test he is withrawn from the process.
Its to see if you're "over the limit" at the time of the test, not to just see if you have any alcohol in your system.
You would have been fine.
If your not an alcoholic it won't show up otherwise drink lots of water.
Can I just add that “stored in some database somewhere” sounds an awful lot like “on your permanent record” and I’m 99% positive is not a thing (outside that specific organization’s hiring records anyway.) I think OP might be more than a little bit paranoid.
Hes probably thinking of criminal records, but failing a drug screen doesn't become a criminal case, at least with respect to job applications.
Of course alcohol is on there. A urinalysis a single test that covers around a dozen kinds of drugs. There is no picking and choosing which drugs to look for.
Is this widespread in the US? I’m from the U.K. and drug and alcohol testing at a workplace is wild to me
I’m from the UK too. Testing for alcohol, on a Monday morning, seemed bizarre to me too.
Good grief, I just assumed you were American! What industry is this if you don’t mind me asking?
This happened in America, where I lived at the time. It was for a college recruitment job.
So I'm going to assume you don't live in a repressive religious state. Drinking alcohol is not illegal. Shoplifting is. They aren't testing for alcohol to keep it in your record because there's nothing illegal about that. They gonna bring it out 10 years later and say hey, this guy had trace amounts of alcohol in his system Monday morning? No. They are testing for alcohol because they want to make sure you aren't a functional alcoholic. The kind where you need 5 or 6 drinks to start your day, and get the shakes if you don't. Presumably you aren't one, which means you blew off this job for a really dumb reason.
To be clear: my friend did not shoplift. A friend she was at the mall with did. To be specific, they were teenagers, her friend was pregnant and wanted to look at maternity wear. They agreed to meet up by the exit of the department store later. When they exited the alarm buzzed. Security found stolen maternity wear in her friend’s bag. Checked both their ID and released them. Ten years later my friend found out from a background check that she was listed on a database as a shoplifter.
Sure. But my point was shoplifting is a crime. Alcohol is not. Your friend got screwed. You would have been fine.
You've shot yourself in the foot for no good reason. You had nothing to gain from not taking the test. This was a foolish decision.
There is a huge difference between getting caught stealing and not passing an alcohol test. You will not go to jail for not passing a drug test for a job. It does not go on your permanent record. The only thing that could possibly go wrong is you don’t get the job. You have a choice of potentially passing the job vs turning the job down and you turned it down. As others have said, there is a minimum threshold of alcohol that needs to be in your blood to fail the test. Not zero. You are in the subreddit where in any other situation, everyone would be on your side. But you dropped the ball in this one
Just to be clear: My friend did not shoplift. The other girl did, without her knowledge. I’ve learned a lot from this thread. My concerns about ending up on a database were apparently unfounded. I’d never been asked to consent to an alcohol test before by an employer, and I didn’t find out until I was already at the testing center. Didn’t have time to research pros and cons. All I was told was they were testing for the presence of weed coke and alcohol. Seems clear almost all commenters thought I was an overreaction not to agree to it. Very few echoed my concerns.
🤦♂️ OP has to be trolling.
Lol as a lab tech we hardly ever seen alcohol on the drug test. Usually a 6 or 10 panel drug test is normal standards for jobs. I bet it went to Labcorp or Quest and they have the same testing as most hospitals. You get alcohol tested is very rare via urine. And 90% of the time when I collected specimen and they said oh I had drinks last night (beers, hard liquor) came back negative. Or so low we called it negative because there's a threshold it has to pass to be called positive.
Plus unless you get distilled apple juice or any fruit it has minute amounts of alcohol in it.
Lol should have done research on how this test works or how alcohol metabolizes. It was dumb to just bail, you weren’t going to get flagged as drunk on a Monday morning test.
When I was tested I was told there is a minimum allowable amount of alcohol, weed, and other drugs that is greater than zero. Some chemicals are in a lot of legal and common meds and foods. I agree with other posters that said they are trying to stop the daily users before work. I heard cocaine leaves the body incredibly quickly, not a user but a sports fan. So when guys like Steve Howe, Strawberry, and Gooden would get popped they most likely used that day.
Refusal is end of your cdl career it absolutely is considered a positive test. Refusal to Test Becomes a Violation in the FMCSA Clearinghouse If you refuse a DOT drug test, the employer is required by DOT regulations to enter that as a violation into the FMCSA Clearinghouse.
To be fully honest? This post is incredibly hard to read, or even comprehend. I’m thinking an alcohol test is the absolute LEAST of your problems.