Substance Abuse Red Flags Checklist

The first step in helping and making accommodations for workers with substance abuse problems is knowing about those problems. Ideally, workers will self-disclose their problems voluntarily. Regrettably, though, people with substance abuse issues are prone to denial and, in some cases, don’t even recognize their own problems. That leaves it to you to make informed judgments about whether workers are struggling with substance abuse and approaching them to see if they need accommodations. The following checklist of substance abuse signs and symptoms, which comes from the Atlantic Canada Council on Addiction (ACCA), can make that tough task easier. A couple of caveats to keep in mind:

• Signs and symptoms may be different from person to person; and
• These are just indicators, not definitive proof, that a person may have a substance abuse problems.