15 Critical Tips for Non-DOT Reasonable Suspicion Training for Supervisors

The idea of training supervisors in substance abuse awareness is a good one. You will reduce risk in your workplace, help protect the bottom line, and the information your supervisors get will naturally travel beyond the workplace to positively affect people in their lives -- especially young people.

Indeed, the nightmares you prevent by doing training on substance abuse so supervisors understand reasonable suspicion and signs and symptoms will truly never be known.

The good news is that training is easy to do, inexpensive, and you can start immediately from this page.

Of course, most businesses don't need the length and trouble of the DOT-mandated format, which focuses on important substances of abuse and time requirements being two hours.

Here, we will discuss non-DOT training, which essentially means that it is not as long. But of course, there is no universal understanding of what should be included in such training.

I'll give you the benefit of my 35 years of experience, and you are welcome to explore the product on this page further.

Specifically, I am going to give you 15 fantastic and effective tips that will make an impression on your supervisors and maximize the likelihood that they will act on the information you provide to them.

You have positions in your company that are risky—especially if an employee is under the influence, right? Otherwise, you probably would not be here. Indeed, the Federal DOT does not control forklifts, small trucks, employees who work at dangerous heights, and lots of other positions that become nightmares ready to happen with a drugged or otherwise impaired employee.

Non-DOT vs. DOT

Non-DOT drug and alcohol awareness training should include alcohol awareness education and drug awareness training. This generally also includes the signs and symptoms of substance use, along with education and awareness on how employees are affected by any drug, the impact on the workplace situation that might occur due to a using employee, and the signs and symptoms of use.

With this information, supervisors are, in theory, able to identify an employee who may be using substances on the job and refer them to testing.

But there is a lot more to it.

Let’s discuss 15 major tips for making these programs for drug and alcohol awareness for supervisors successful. That means, globally, three things: good information, sticky and memorable information, and motivating supervisors to act on the information presented in training.

Wait, let me expand on that!

Motivation means one critical thing—dispelling myths and misconceptions about substance abuse, addiction, alcoholism, drug dependency, and the who, why, and how these things develop, and the best way to treat or intervene with employees who acquire these problems. If you don't do this, then employees remain bound to old behaviors. You must shake things up a bit. So, tip #1:

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Tip 1: See your Non-DOT Supervisor Training as an education program that helps all people, not a tool to find addicts.

Training given to supervisors helps them, helps them manage employees more effectively, and motivates them to see substance use disorders as disease processes that better hold employees accountable for getting treatment. Supervisors enable less. And the information they acquire in the training travels with them in their personal lives.

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Tip 2: Spend the Most Time on Alcohol

Alcohol is the most abused substance both in the workplace and in society in general. And its costs are staggering. But understanding "alcohol use disorder"—a term that means alcoholism, recently changed to be more politically correct—has many myths and misconceptions associated with it. (You won’t see Alcoholics Anonymous changing their name and literature any time soon.)

Here's the point: one out of ten employees who drinks is or will become alcoholic, and the nature of denial is such that virtually all alcoholics have a definition of alcoholism that does not include themselves.

And when their alcoholism finally catches up, the alcoholic changes their definition to compare out of the diagnosis for a bit longer—possibly many years. This is why interventions can work. This denial is shallow.

Spend time on the signs and symptoms, especially early stages, where more alcoholics in your training will easily self-diagnose.

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Tip 3: Use the Latest Information on Marijuana in Training

Information—bad news, that is—is constantly appearing in the news. Be sure to share this information with employees. You must heavily counter the propaganda about cannabis that society spews.

For example, here are just a few:

• A 2025 study published in JAMA Neurology found that individuals who visited an emergency room or were hospitalized due to cannabis use had a 23% higher risk of developing dementia within five years.

• Research shows people addicted to cannabis use disorder have triple the risk of death.

• Numerous studies have found that cannabis users are at a much higher risk for heart attacks—six times!

• People with cannabis use disorder have more “black spots” in brain regions associated with dopamine regulation and psychosis.

• Long-term use of cannabis worsens depression, especially for depressed patients, and worsens mental health.

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Tip 4: Educate Supervisors About Common Excuses Employees Give When Confronted on the Job

Tip 5: Give Handouts to Supervisors That Make an Impact

Tip 6: Discuss the Myth of, "Well, He's a Functional Alcoholic"

Tip 7: Explain Enabling in All Its Contexts

Tip 8: Intervene with the Idea That Supervisors Can Coach Drug/Alcohol-Using Employees into Recovery

Tip 9: Discuss Symptoms of Withdrawal—Not Just Use

Tip 10: Explain Recovery from Drug Abuse—Abstinence

Tip 11: Discuss the Weird Drugs

Tip 12: Define Reasonable Suspicion

Tip 13: Avoid "Friendships" with Employees with Alcohol Use Disorders

Tip 14: Explain Away Common Myths and Misconceptions About Addiction

Tip 15: Explain Date Rape Drugs

Educating supervisors about drugs of abuse in the workplace by giving them information that interests them and has practical applications for them as a parent, especially, will help them retain information and stay engaged with the educational material that you present, thereby benefitting the work organization.

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Let me know if you'd like this reformatted for a newsletter or adapted into a more condensed version.