subject: DOT Compliance Training Secrets Revealed: Zapping Alcoholic Denial in DOT Drug and Alcohol Training with Supervisors [print this page] DOT Compliance Training Secrets Revealed: Zapping Alcoholic Denial in DOT Drug and Alcohol Training with Supervisors
Include this information in your DOT Compliance Training for Supervisors
During DOT compliance training for supervisor education on alcohol and drug use symptoms, the most important thing you can teach is not signs and symptoms of substance abuse. Sure, they are important, but to have your supervisors understand denial in a way that really hits home and makes them think trumps all. This is how you get behavior change and reduce corporate risk.
If the myths and misconceptions supervisors possess aren't dispelled, their false beliefs will cause them to leave training completely ineffectual. The reality is that everyone -- you, me, and every supervisor who knows an alcoholic is tainted with the wrong information about addiction.
This is extremely significant and has implications for DOT compliance training for supervisors, and whether it works. The federal government is not going to require you teach anything about denial, but let's put it this way--you're blowing your training into the wind if you don't offer it.
You can't live very long without eventually bumping into someone who is an alcoholic because it equates to about 1 out of 10 people who drink. Do you know ten people that drink? Most likely the answer is yes, of course.
This means DOT compliance training for supervisors must help supervisors understand that they possess serious myths and misconceptions about addiction and alcoholism unless they were educated extensively, like let's say, in an addiction treatment program. These folks coming out of treatment really understand the disease properly.
The key myth to dispel among supervisors is clearing up false definitions. In compliance training is supervisors should learn how alcoholics, escape the diagnosis of alcoholism in their minds. This is what alcoholic denial or drug addiction denial is all about--comparing out of the illness and deciding that specific symptoms don't apply to oneself.
Once a DOT supervisor or manager understands the true definition of denial, then a new level of energy for contronting alcoholics with symptoms on the job emerges. Here is the proper definition of denial to teach supervisors:
"Addicts or alcoholics have a definition of addiction that excludes them. Addicts focus on symptoms of addiction that they do not have and use this information to avoid self-diagnosis. Addicts then change their definition over time to exclude worsening symptoms."
If your planning to educate supervisors on the signs and symptoms of alcohol and drug use, be sure to include information about alcoholism and go heavy on signs, symptoms, and self-examination so supervisors they "see the problem" and/or even self-diagnosis their own alcoholism. Don't apologize for it. If they aren't feeling a little squirmy in their seats, they aren't learning enough.
Most supervisors possess misinformation about alcohol and drug abuse and its impact on the workplace. But don't be fooled. Every employee has a definition of alcohol and drug abuse that excludes them, too. If you drink socially and aren't an alcoholic, you possess the same denial mechanisms alcoholics use to "compare out" of the illness.
The popular culture, stigma, and family denial all serve to perpetuate the difficulty in having drug and alcohol addictions seen as true diseases. This, despite that the country's most intelligent national experts--doctors who are members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine screaming for people to understand this fact.
Supervisor training is NOT just for DOT compliance. It can change society and what's going on in the family, too. The gateway to this change is zapping denial and teaching others how alcoholics remain in denial. Learn more below.
