Dr. Bill,
I am in an alternative to incarceration program that may or may not test me for alcohol using hair. It has been a few weeks since I drank, but do you know if I were to cut my hair to about a centimeter if a hair test could still be performed? I know I will be OK with the urine. Thanks.

Dr. Bill,
I am in an alternative to incarceration program that may or may not test me for alcohol using hair. It has been a few weeks since I drank, but do you know if I were to cut my hair to about a centimeter if a hair test could still be performed? I know I will be ok with the urine. Thanks.


It will be taken from any part of your body where you have hair. It does not have to be on your head.

AND if you've shaved to avoid the rest, that will be a violation.

I gather one of the conditions of your program is that you not drink alcohol but you did and now the question is how to "beat" the test?

It will be taken from any part of your body where you have hair. It does not have to be on your head.

AND if you've shaved to avoid the rest, that will be a violation.

I gather one of the conditions of your program is that you not drink alcohol but you did and now the question is how to "beat" the test?

More or less. I admitted to them that I drank a few times, I'm more worried about false positives from using things like nyquill to make it seem like a drank a lot more than I admitted to.

Dr. Bill,
I am in an alternative to incarceration program that may or may not test me for alcohol using hair. It has been a few weeks since I drank, but do you know if I were to cut my hair to about a centimeter if a hair test could still be performed? I know I will be ok with the urine. Thanks.

Alcohol cannot be tested for in hair! So that will not be a problem. If you are in US EtG/FAEE is not used to the best of my knowledge.

Alcohol cannot be tested for in hair! So that will not be a problem. If you are in US EtG/FAEE is not used to the best of my knowledge.


Yikes! I was wrong, wrong, wrong -

There is a hair test for alcohol, but its double the cost for multiple drugs. I recently asked the lab about it a cple days ago.

Ethanol (EtOH) cannot be detected in hair. If a lab states they can test for past alcohol use they are referring to Hair EtG/FAEE. There is no Plus Alcohol in hair tests as in urine for instance. Hope that is not too confusing but they are very different approaches.