When the time comes that you are actually looking for information on drug testing, it must mean you have unanswered questions. Is my loved one using drugs? What is my child using? How much are they using? You deserve the answers. Exact Drug Test is at your disposal to provide the tools, knowledge, and education to not only take this first step in addressing the substance abuse issues that you or someone you know are struggling with, but also as a comprehensive resource and forum to address addiction and get to the ultimate solution, sobriety. Drug testing your child can be uncomfortable and uneasy but must be done.
Some of you may feel helpless and want definitive answers, and drug testing at home is the right first step. If you care enough to read this article, then you deserve to know the truth. No matter how many lies or how many denials, if your gut tells you they are using, odds are some sort of illicit substance is at play. Whether it’s marijuana, cocaine, prescription pills, heroin, or any one of the multiple drugs our tests check for, you will get the much needed answers and have a grip on where your loved one may be at in their active drug addiction.
Knowing what they are using can be a great asset. If you find out it’s prescription pills, such as the antidepressants you noticed were missing from the medicine cabinet, there is some solace in knowing. If your loved one is positive for heroin, then you will have to face that harsh reality. Again, the sooner the better. In drug abuse, the longer the person uses, the harder it is and the longer it may take to recover.
The whole process of testing someone you care so deeply about is not an easy one. I personally have plenty of hands-on experience when it comes to beating the tests, making excuses why I can’t take it, etc. My knowledge, which I will gladly pass on to you, comes from my teenage years. My mother was a director for one of the top two laboratories in the country. Home drug tests were not deliverable and readily available back then. My poor mother would have me pee in a plastic cup and take my urine sample—terribly embarrassed—to her work covered in Saran Wrap to be sent out for testing. When using our at-home drug tests, you get instant results that are over 95% accurate, you don’t have to even be seen buying them in the store, and you don’t have to wait for the lab to process and report the results.
The drug tests we deliver to your home come in discrete packaging. The most popular and easiest test to administer is the twelve panel drug test cups. There are a few other methods, such as hair, blood, and saliva drugs tests, but the urine test is the fastest, most accurate, and most cost effective method. Each panel in a twelve panel test simply means a type of drug which will be tested for. So a five panel test tests for five drugs and a twelve panel test tests for twelve drugs. Even though there can be well over sixty panels available for testing, we provide drug tests for the twelve drugs that are most common.
Once ready to use the test, simply take the cup out of the wrapper. It’s fairly self-explanatory how to administer the test. There are step by step instructions provided, as well as a breakdown of the drugs tested and details on how to read the results. If you do get a positive result for any number of drugs and want a detailed report on the levels, you place it in the plastic bio bag and follow the directions to send it out to a laboratory for confirmatory testing on advanced mass spectrometers and analyzers. This cost is included in the higher-priced kits. Even though the instant drug test kits are higher than 95% accurate, the lab test of the positive results will dismiss the chance of any false positives.
Accurate Drug Testing
Every drug passes through your body at different rates of time. There are more details on the specifics for each drug and their half-life on our webpage and in the guide we provide with every test. As a basic rule of thumb, marijuana stays in the body the longest—usually up to thirty days, with regular use. Benzodiazepines such as Xanax stay for as little as three days or up to twenty with high levels of abuse. The detection window for cocaine, heroin, and most opiates is up to three days. There are opiates like Dilaudid that can pass in and out of your system and avoid detection within hours. Therefore, time is of the essence. Don’t hesitate, and avoid any delays in getting a sample. In drug testing, there are regulated cutoff levels, meaning a positive result will only show if more than X amount of a substance is detected. Exact Drug Test provides some of the lowest possible detection levels to ensure an accurate positive or negative result.
Exact Drug Test makes it affordable to have a supply of cups on hand, and that will help twofold. One, as a deterrent. Your child knows you are seriously concerned and fed up with being lied to when you start asking them to take a drug test. You both may feel as if you’re insulting them or invading their privacy, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Your child can now be certain that at any time when they walk through the door there may be a test cup waiting on the table. Therefore, they may think twice about coming home high. Two, if your child decides to be sneaky and alter the cup and/or use water from the toilet bowl (we will explore many ways to try and cheat the test later), you will not have to worry about going to buy another.
We want you to be prepared. I feel it necessary to fill you in on what to expect. For many parents, husbands, and wives, this is your first time dealing with such issues, and it’s scary not knowing what to do. We do not just deliver drug tests to your door. We want to be a coach, a total resource equipping you to fight the sometimes uphill battle that lies ahead. From a 24/4 live support line, to webinars, training sessions, drug treatment resources, rehabilitation options, and necessary drug testing, we are here for you.
Now as I mentioned earlier, it is no walk in the park drug testing your child, especially getting someone who is abusing narcotics to open up about their habits, much less submit to a urine analysis. Be prepared for the reaction when you break the news that you want your loved one to take a drug test on the spot. When it was fist asked of me, I blew my lid and knew it was going to be a long night for everyone. I was pumped full of drugs that I would never want my family to know I was using. So I refused. For days. I refused to the point that my mother was in tears. Then I thought I was slick and used the pee that, luckily, my dad must have left in the toilet, somehow forgetting to flush. The crazy part was that when the test came back it was positive for marijuana! I never told on my dad, but I was happy my mom didn’t find the heroin, cocaine, Xanax, and PCP that were all in my system.
My relief was short lived. My mom wasn’t as stupid as I thought. She knew I wasn’t just smoking weed—plus I think she had an informant, my brother. A week later she started in again, asking for a urine sample every night I came home. She put blue dye in the toilet tank so the water was blue and unusable for diluting the sample. I then got clean pee from a friend, put it in a travel shampoo bottle, and heated it up on the defroster in the car on the way home. Then I kept it in my underwear and was very slick getting it into the cup. When the results came back negative, she wanted so bad to believe me, but a mother’s instincts don’t lie. In the next round of testing, I let bleach dry on my fingers and dipped them in my pee, which I diluted by drinking a TON of water and taking multivitamins to give my pee a bright yellow color. They sell Ready Clean, among other drinks, online and places like GNS which help mask the drugs, but my mom sent it to the lab for confirmation and it revealed the samples were tampered with. It went on for weeks. Eventually the jig was up. I could not take breaking her heart, and my drug use was tearing our family apart, so I fessed up. But not fully. I let three days pass, and most of the hard drugs like the coke and heroin left my system. It worked temporarily and may have saved me from developing a full blown habit because I slowed down the rest of my teenage years. When I was done with high school, however, I moved out and did what I wanted to do. I can tell you now, be smart, be observant, take my advice, and do what my mom did. Even though I struggled with addiction for fifteen years, her efforts may have damn well saved me from doing something stupid at an age when I was fearless and naive.
I feel that my real work experience operating a successful drug rehabilitation program in South Florida has provided me with vital knowledge about what helps maintain sobriety once it’s achieved, which I wish to share with you. Regular drug testing is a big part of that maintenance. In the area of drug treatment, those in a program for recovery are tested randomly approximately ten times a month. This is done not only to make sure clients are not using drugs, but as a system of accountability. It helps knowing that on any night you may be tested and, if positive, there will be consequences. Some consequences may be having to go to a higher level of care, losing your housing, job, family, or getting your car taken away for a month as a form of punishment for driving while using. Everyone’s story is different. The bottom line is if and when it comes to the point of concern, the best thing to do is be proactive.
As I have realized with the kids I help, I am telling you now that the approach is everything. I have learned how to genuinely relieve the awkwardness, the hesitation, and the anger when confronting someone about their use. There is a method to getting someone to submit a urine sample and admit using drugs. Making sure they are honest about what drugs they are or are not using is vital. I want the whole story.
Be prepared to be lied to endlessly. If someone with an active addiction is not ready to get honest and get help, they will go to any and all extremes to preserve their habit. Having drug tests delivered to your door and using our resources and staff members to educate and prepare yourself will create a more focused, direct, and comfortable setting for when you do confront your child or family member. We can help you understand things like the telltale signs that come along with different narcotics, where the best place to get treatment is (either in your area or out of state), common places where addicts hide drugs, and how to develop a game plan and define options. Sometimes having someone else involved to make your loved one more comfortable will be an asset during the intervention as well. It is never guaranteed what will come out of any situation. Again, it starts with knowing what drugs are being used and how severe the drug abuse is. Pray for the best and prepare for the worst, and use all our experience to avoid pitfalls and headaches. I hope this article has helped you in maneuvering the process of drug testing your child.