The two-hour alcohol and drug awareness training specified by the DOT is not required by most supervisors in the United States and beyond, who are not regulated by the Department of Transportation in travel-related safety sensitive roles. Their training needs to be shorter, and they can acquire everything they need to know from a non-DOT supervisor training programme.
However, training DOT or non-DOT supervisors is the same. Only the amount of time it takes to complete the programme is varied.
Drug and Alcohol Awareness training does not cover trucks or transportation at all, as a side point.. Substance abuse awareness and drug classification are the main goals of the training, which aims to prepare supervisors for their role in detecting employees who are abusing substances on the job, then taking them “off the line” for testing, which is most typically a urine screen/test.
Assist Non-DOT Managers Diagnose and Treat the Infection Correctly
When dealing with other personal issues, treating alcoholism or drug addiction (often used interchangeably) comes first. Begin early in your presentation to make it clear to your bosses that addiction is an illness, and not a symptom of a person’s personal difficulties.
Rather of teaching diagnostic skills, you’re actually undoing them. Most supervisors will walk away from your presentation with the same preconceptions and assumptions they had when they arrived if you don’t accomplish with this instructional task. This means that the company is at more risk.
Addiction is the root cause of many common health and personal issues that people face today. Addiction is exacerbated by personal issues, which only serve to make it more difficult to break free. Rather than causation, this is a result of their actions. DOT supervisors who aren’t in your classroom may be shocked to learn this.
If you talk to them about it, even non-DOT bosses will agree to it.
Supervisors are usually aware of a wide range of personal issues before alcohol or drug abuse becomes visible. This is why it’s important to think about the chicken-and-the-egg problem.
These are signs of a problem with alcohol or drugs, although they are sometimes misunderstood as causes.
Stress is commonly believed to be the root cause of alcoholism, although this is not true. You’d drink too if your wife left you for another man, I’ll bet you’d say.” It’s time to rule out acute chronic alcoholism for this person. Those who don’t drink can’t use alcohol in this way to make themselves feel better. It’s just not going to work.
Instead of sending employees to an employee assistance programme, managers should try to figure out what’s wrong with them personally before sending them there. Discussion and possible answers are often generated by focusing on one’s own personal issues.
Drug and alcohol addictions are often referred to as “addictive sickness.” Why? Nowadays, addiction is a complex, multifaceted issue. It’s not like in 1935, when addicts could choose from a wide variety of street drugs. In many cases, alcoholics have used additional addictive substances, whether prescribed or unprescribed. To help the public comprehend that any mood-altering substance is out of limits for patients recuperating from addictive sickness, the terms “addiction disease” and “chemical dependency” are employed. There will be a few gasps and a few arguments as a result of this reality.
Addiction is a disease, and it is the primary cause. To avoid relapses, patients are taught disease management techniques similar to those used by diabetics. For most people, experimentation or peer pressure is the first step in experimenting with alcohol or drugs. From that point on, the course of the disease is determined by physiologic susceptibility. However, there are other factors that can affect the disease’s severity and progress.
In 1957, the American Medical Association classified alcoholism as a disease. The World Health Organization declared alcoholism an illness in 1956. Despite the fact that the majority of people think of alcoholism as a disease, denial prevents them from seeking treatment.
A lot of individuals try to define alcoholism based on what they do (how much one drinks, when, or what they drink, and their physical appearance). Most people aren’t aware that certain professions offer more frequent opportunities to consume alcohol socially or secretly. This “taxing one’s vulnerability” in certain work environments will lead to an earlier and more severe development of the illness..
Those who work in male-dominated environments, such as sales reps on the road, are more likely to suffer from alcoholism. Did you know that nurses have a greater risk of addiction than other professions, and that after-hours drinking of alcohol is a major factor in addition to predisposed biogenic vulnerability from parents to children? Risk and onset speed are increased by the ability to test one’s vulnerability.