RedHat
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2015
- Messages
- 91
My state has a drug and alcohol diversion program called TASC, which I was obligated to enroll in a couple years ago. I've long been off the program, but while I was on it I had something pretty interesting happen.
So it was Friday, and my color had gotten called, so I went and did my thing, knowing it would be just fine since there wasn't anything in my system. However, that weekend was my birthday, and my girlfriend was flying in from out of state to be with me. We went out that Friday night, and I figured that since my color was called that day, there was a slim chance it would get called on Monday. So we went out and had a blasty blast. Then over the weekend I did my typical routine of work and hitting the gym, nothing out of the ordinary, and other than the decently heavy drinking on Friday night, no other alcohol or drugs were consumed.
On Sunday night I called to see what colors had to go in for Monday, and to my surprise... they called my color
. I definitely freaked out a bit but ultimately figured there wasn't much I could do. I decided to just drink a ton of water and dilute the urine.
Note: For those of you who aren't familiar with TASC or other similar diversion programs, they consider a diluted urine sample the same thing as if you were to show positive for drugs or even just not come in. And yes, I was aware of this, but I just kinda figured that it would at least give me something to argue about to my case handler.
So on Monday morning, I wake up, take my multi-vitamins, and start chugging water all day. I lost count of how many times I refilled my water bottle at work, but it was a lot. Then after work, I head into the TASC office here, give my sample and go home. Realizing that they're surely going to call me tomorrow saying my urine was diluted and that I have to go in again and they will extend how long I have to stay on TASC.
The next day they didn't call me, and I figured that they either hadn't gotten my results back, or my case handler was out of the office. So on Wednesday I was positive id hear from her. And sure enough, she called. I answered the phone and asked her whats up, to which she replied "You forgot to pay your monthly bill. You need to pay $100 when you come in here next" "Ok, sorry about that, ill take care of it. Anything else?" "Nope, you're doin great! Keep it up".
I was fucking dumbfounded... I almost asked her if she was sure. I didn't want to get my hopes up just to have her call me back and say it was positive. But sure enough, she never called me back.
Now I was 10000% positive that I had alcohol in my system. And even if I didn't have alcohol in my system, I was even more certain that it was a diluted sample. What in the hell happened? Did they screw it up somehow?.. Fat chance. I knew that there must be an answer to this. So for the next couple hours I hopped on the Googlez, researching as much stuff as I possibly could. I knew that I had a lot of supplements in me, so I started Googling..
After a few hours, I found this nifty little PDF document titled The Effective Use of Urine Creatinine Measurements in Abstinence Monitoring. Specifically on pages 29 and 30.
The Creatine Supplement Issue: (page 30)
So basically they check if you're sample is diluted by checking the creatinine level, which if its a low level would indicate that its diluted. But taking creatine will increase the creatinine levels. Meaning even though it was diluted, they weren't able to tell.
Though this seemed like my answer, I still wasn't 100% sure. And its not like I could just ask them about it. However, over the next few months, I was caught up in similar situations. 2 more times, to be specific (3 in total). Each time I took some creatine the night before and the morning of to raise the creatinine levels in my urine, as well as some B vitamins to turn it yellow-ish, and it worked, every time!
I have no idea how TASC performs its urinary analysis. I doubt they use gas chromatography, but I cant be certain. The above "trick" worked fine for me there, but that doesn't mean it will work everywhere! So if you try it and end up getting busted, don't come and try to bitch me out. Use at your own risk!
Hopefully this helps someone
P.S. I decided to post this because there's surprisingly little out there about how they monitor the creatinine levels. I wasn't able to find this pretty much anywhere unless I specifically added "creatine" or "creatinine" to the search query.
So it was Friday, and my color had gotten called, so I went and did my thing, knowing it would be just fine since there wasn't anything in my system. However, that weekend was my birthday, and my girlfriend was flying in from out of state to be with me. We went out that Friday night, and I figured that since my color was called that day, there was a slim chance it would get called on Monday. So we went out and had a blasty blast. Then over the weekend I did my typical routine of work and hitting the gym, nothing out of the ordinary, and other than the decently heavy drinking on Friday night, no other alcohol or drugs were consumed.
On Sunday night I called to see what colors had to go in for Monday, and to my surprise... they called my color
. I definitely freaked out a bit but ultimately figured there wasn't much I could do. I decided to just drink a ton of water and dilute the urine. Note: For those of you who aren't familiar with TASC or other similar diversion programs, they consider a diluted urine sample the same thing as if you were to show positive for drugs or even just not come in. And yes, I was aware of this, but I just kinda figured that it would at least give me something to argue about to my case handler.
So on Monday morning, I wake up, take my multi-vitamins, and start chugging water all day. I lost count of how many times I refilled my water bottle at work, but it was a lot. Then after work, I head into the TASC office here, give my sample and go home. Realizing that they're surely going to call me tomorrow saying my urine was diluted and that I have to go in again and they will extend how long I have to stay on TASC.
The next day they didn't call me, and I figured that they either hadn't gotten my results back, or my case handler was out of the office. So on Wednesday I was positive id hear from her. And sure enough, she called. I answered the phone and asked her whats up, to which she replied "You forgot to pay your monthly bill. You need to pay $100 when you come in here next" "Ok, sorry about that, ill take care of it. Anything else?" "Nope, you're doin great! Keep it up".
I was fucking dumbfounded... I almost asked her if she was sure. I didn't want to get my hopes up just to have her call me back and say it was positive. But sure enough, she never called me back.
Now I was 10000% positive that I had alcohol in my system. And even if I didn't have alcohol in my system, I was even more certain that it was a diluted sample. What in the hell happened? Did they screw it up somehow?.. Fat chance. I knew that there must be an answer to this. So for the next couple hours I hopped on the Googlez, researching as much stuff as I possibly could. I knew that I had a lot of supplements in me, so I started Googling..
- P̶r̶o̶t̶e̶i̶n̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶r̶u̶g̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶s̶
- N̶o̶ ̶X̶p̶l̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶r̶u̶g̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶s̶
- V̶i̶t̶a̶m̶i̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶r̶u̶g̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶s̶
- Creatine and drug tests... DING DING! Found something interesting...
After a few hours, I found this nifty little PDF document titled The Effective Use of Urine Creatinine Measurements in Abstinence Monitoring. Specifically on pages 29 and 30.
The Creatine Supplement Issue: (page 29)
- creatine is the pre-cursor of creatinine
- creatine supplements may increase the amount ofcreatine in the muscles
- muscles may be able to generate more energy orgenerate energy at a faster rate
- creatine supplements (along with training) mayimprove performance by increasing energy foractivities such as sprinting and weightlifting
- but that?s NOT why our clients take it!
The Creatine Supplement Issue: (page 30)
- consuming over-the-counter creatine can disguisepre-collection hydration and a diluted urine
- creatine converted to creatinine will mask thedilution efforts
- in reality - very difficult to coordinate the intaketiming and volume of creatine and dilution liquid
- creatinine greater than 300 mg/dL - increasedmonitoring
- creatinine greater than 400 mg/dL - sanctionable
So basically they check if you're sample is diluted by checking the creatinine level, which if its a low level would indicate that its diluted. But taking creatine will increase the creatinine levels. Meaning even though it was diluted, they weren't able to tell.
Though this seemed like my answer, I still wasn't 100% sure. And its not like I could just ask them about it. However, over the next few months, I was caught up in similar situations. 2 more times, to be specific (3 in total). Each time I took some creatine the night before and the morning of to raise the creatinine levels in my urine, as well as some B vitamins to turn it yellow-ish, and it worked, every time!
I have no idea how TASC performs its urinary analysis. I doubt they use gas chromatography, but I cant be certain. The above "trick" worked fine for me there, but that doesn't mean it will work everywhere! So if you try it and end up getting busted, don't come and try to bitch me out. Use at your own risk!
Hopefully this helps someone
P.S. I decided to post this because there's surprisingly little out there about how they monitor the creatinine levels. I wasn't able to find this pretty much anywhere unless I specifically added "creatine" or "creatinine" to the search query.
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