My 20 year old nephew has been living with us for a while. We are helping him get back on his feet and he is doing a terrific job. He has had issues in the past with drugs and alcohol and we explained that we will be doing random testing while he is staying in our home. Has anyone ever used home drug test kits? Someone told me that I could probably purchase them at Walgreens? All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
Thank you for all the great feedback! BTW-When we told my nephew we would be doing random testing we explained it in a celebratory way.(if that makes sense) That we do trust him and we want him to be successful! We know that he will not test positive and so that gives us reason to celebrate! He confessed to us the next evening that he did use the previous Monday.. My husband and I feel good about the talk we had with him and are going to continue to support him.
No feedback but would like to say I admire you for working with him. He is blessed to have you.
Any pharmacy should have them. About the trust--let him earn it, but don't take it for granted that he won't use again. Do the tests. He is very fortunate to have your support.
You can get them at Walgreen's, but I would save it for a time when you're having doubts. If he's doing well, then leave him alone and show some trust in him. It will go a long way!
I work for a national laboratory and "sell" prescription monitoring and drug/alcohol testing (among other tests). The drugstore tests do work but are not as sensitive as laboratory testing, they have a higher cutoff and therefore less detection of metabolites.
If he is doing a great job I would encourage that by showing trust in him.
Yes, you can get them at Walgreens, CVS, etc, but they're not cheap, AND he might kind of feel like you don't trust him and that would hurt if he's really trying, so find a way to do it tactfully. I've never purchased them, but one of my previous employers (a pharmacy), used to use them to drug test employees at random if certain medications went missing, and yes, they do work.
I've seen them at Rite-Aid also. There are tests that do up to five drugs. You have to read the directions closely. It's backwards from say, a pregnancy test. If two lines come up on the drug test, it is NEGATIVE. If only the control comes up, and the test line is blank, it is positive for drugs. Weird huh??
They work, they are usually near the pharmacist. Just my opinion...If you say he is doing terrific why set things back by making it a point that he isn't trusted. What your doing is very wonderful, and in the process of helping him get back on his feet your also showing him you trust and have faith he can do it!
I would wait until you have a reason to. Again, that is just my opinion. I wish him well and you all the best.
