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.
