What Is Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Leave in California?

If you work in California and want to enter treatment for a substance use disorder, Labor Code Sections 1025 through 1028 require private employers with 25 or more employees to reasonably accommodate your voluntary participation in an alcohol or drug rehabilitation program. That is the baseline for alcohol and drug rehabilitation leave in California, and depending on how long you have worked for your employer and how large the company is, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the California Family Rights Act, the Fair Employment and Housing Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act can layer on top with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave and broader disability accommodations.

Who Qualifies for Rehab Leave Under Labor Code Section 1025

Section 1025 applies to private employers who regularly employ 25 or more people.¹ Public employers are not covered by this particular chapter. If you work for a smaller private company, this statute does not reach your employer, though FEHA and the ADA still might.

The law covers any employee who voluntarily decides to enter a rehabilitation program. “Voluntarily” is doing real work in that sentence: you have to be the one choosing treatment, not someone ordered into it by a court or an employer. Job title, seniority, and role do not affect eligibility. If you work for a qualifying employer and you want to enter rehab, you are covered.

What Your Employer Has to Do

Your employer must reasonably accommodate your decision to participate in rehab. In practice, that usually means adjusting your schedule so you can attend outpatient sessions, granting time off for inpatient treatment, or allowing a modified return-to-work arrangement. The statute does not list required accommodations because the answer depends on your job and your treatment plan. You and your employer are expected to talk it through and find something workable.

Your employer does not have to pay for your treatment.² The obligation is to make room in your schedule, not to fund rehab.

Your employer must also make reasonable efforts to keep your enrollment private. Labor Code Section 1026 requires employers to safeguard this information, so your decision to seek treatment should not become office knowledge.³ HR and your manager may need to know you are on medical leave, but the specific reason should stay on a need-to-know basis.

Using Sick Leave While You Are in Treatment

Section 1025 does not require paid rehab leave, but Section 1027 explicitly lets you apply accrued sick leave toward entering and participating in a rehabilitation program.²

Under California’s paid sick leave law, employees accrue at least one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a minimum of 40 hours (five days) per year. Employers can cap total accrued sick leave at 80 hours or ten days.⁴ A short outpatient program may fit inside that bank. Longer inpatient treatment will usually exhaust your sick leave quickly, and the balance of the time will be unpaid unless you qualify for something like state disability insurance.

When FMLA or CFRA Gives You More

Sections 1025–1028 are not the whole picture. If you qualify, federal and state family leave laws add a defined amount of protected time off and a clear right to return to your job.

Federal FMLA

The Family and Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for a serious health condition.⁵ Substance abuse treatment qualifies when it involves care by a health care provider or treatment on referral from one. Absences caused by the substance use itself, rather than treatment for it, do not qualify.⁶ Checking into a treatment facility is protected. Missing work because you were using is not.

To qualify, you need 12 months of employment with your employer, at least 1,250 hours worked in the past year, and an employer with at least 50 employees within 75 miles of your worksite. When you return, you are entitled to your same position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions.⁷ That right applies even if the position was filled or restructured while you were gone.

California Family Rights Act

CFRA largely mirrors FMLA but reaches further. It applies to employers with just five or more employees, so many California workers who fall below the federal 50-employee threshold still get up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave. You still need 12 months of employment and 1,250 hours worked, but the smaller employer size opens the door to significantly more workers.

FEHA and ADA Disability Protections

Both California and federal disability discrimination laws can also protect employees with substance use disorders, with important limits around current illegal drug use.

FEHA

Under FEHA, alcoholism and drug addiction can qualify as physical or mental disabilities if they limit a major life activity. When they do, your employer must engage in an interactive process and provide reasonable accommodations, which can include leave for treatment. FEHA explicitly excludes “psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from the current unlawful use of controlled substances or other drugs” from its disability definitions.⁸ Plainly: if your disorder involves currently using illegal drugs, FEHA does not protect you. If you are in recovery, seeking treatment, or dealing with alcohol, the protections are potentially available.

FEHA’s reasonable accommodation requirements apply to employers with five or more employees, and an employer cannot refuse accommodations unless doing so would create an undue hardship.⁹

ADA

The ADA draws a similar line federally. Employees currently engaging in illegal drug use are not qualified individuals with a disability. But the ADA specifically protects three groups: people who have successfully completed a supervised rehabilitation program and are no longer using, people currently participating in a rehabilitation program and no longer using, and people erroneously regarded as using drugs when they are not.¹⁰ Employers can still conduct drug testing to verify that someone in the first two groups has actually stopped.

Retaliation and the Substance-Abuse Policy Exception

Taking rehab leave should not cost you your career. Under FMLA, employers cannot interfere with, restrain, or deny an employee’s exercise of FMLA rights, and they cannot retaliate against employees who take or request protected leave.¹¹ That covers discouraging you from taking leave, using your leave against you in promotion or discipline decisions, and counting FMLA absences under a no-fault attendance policy.

There is a real limit here. FMLA does not override a legitimate, consistently enforced substance abuse policy. If your employer has a written policy providing for termination based on substance abuse and has applied it in a nondiscriminatory way, the employer may enforce it even while you are on FMLA leave.⁶ What the employer cannot do is fire you specifically because you exercised your right to take leave for treatment. Disputes usually turn on that line between “terminated under a preexisting policy” and “terminated for requesting rehab leave,” and documentation on both sides matters.

Under state law, FEHA separately prohibits retaliation against employees who request accommodations for a disability, including leave for treatment of a qualifying substance use disorder.⁹

When an Employer Can Lawfully Refuse or Discipline

These protections have limits, and knowing them helps you read your own situation.

Undue Hardship

Section 1025 and FEHA both let an employer deny an accommodation if it would impose an undue hardship on the business.¹ Factors include the size of the business, its financial resources, and the operational impact of the accommodation. A 30-person company losing its only IT specialist for 90 days faces a very different hardship analysis than a large corporation granting leave to one of 200 customer service representatives. The employer bears the burden of showing the hardship is real, not hypothetical.

Current Use Affecting Performance or Safety

Section 1025 lets an employer refuse to hire or discharge an employee whose current use of alcohol or drugs makes them unable to perform their job duties or creates a danger to themselves or others.¹⁸¹⁰

The practical takeaway: entering treatment is protected. Showing up impaired, or being unable to do your job because of active substance use, is not. An employer who terminates you for on-the-job impairment has a defense even if you have simultaneously requested rehab leave, as long as the termination is genuinely based on performance or safety concerns and not on your decision to seek help.

Unrelated Policy Violations

Requesting rehab leave does not shield you from discipline for conduct unrelated to your rehabilitation. If you violated a workplace policy before requesting leave, or you engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with your substance use disorder, your employer can still act on it. The question in any dispute is whether the timing suggests retaliation or whether the employer would have taken the same action regardless of the leave request.

Where to File a Complaint

Which agency you go to depends on which law was violated, and getting this right matters because the deadlines differ.

Labor Code Violations (Sections 1025–1028)

If your employer denied you a reasonable accommodation for voluntary rehab under the Labor Code, file with the California Labor Commissioner. Section 1028 designates the Labor Commissioner’s office as the enforcement body for this chapter and incorporates the standard complaint investigation procedures.¹²

FEHA Disability Discrimination Claims

If your employer discriminated against you based on a substance use disorder that qualifies as a disability under FEHA, file with the California Civil Rights Department. In employment cases, you must submit an intake form within three years of the most recent harm. You can also skip the CRD investigation and file your own lawsuit, but you first need a Right-to-Sue notice from CRD.¹³

FMLA Violations

For federal FMLA violations, you can file with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division or file a private lawsuit. The general deadline is two years from the date of the violation, extended to three years for willful violations.¹¹

Available remedies across these channels include back pay, reinstatement, compensation for losses caused by the failure to accommodate, and in some cases additional penalties. Because more than one law can apply to the same situation, picking the right filing path early can preserve claims that might otherwise expire.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code LAB 1025 – Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation
2
California Legislative Information. California Code LAB 1027 – Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation
3
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Chapter 3.7 – Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation
4
California Department of Industrial Relations. Paid Sick Leave Frequently Asked Questions
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2612 – Leave Requirement
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eCFR. 29 CFR 825.119 – Leave for Substance Abuse
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eCFR. 29 CFR 825.214 – Employee Right to Reinstatement
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California Legislative Information. California Government Code 12926 – Definitions
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California Legislative Information. California Government Code 12940 – Unlawful Employment Practices
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12114 – Illegal Use of Drugs and Alcohol
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U.S. Department of Labor. Protection for Individuals Under the FMLA
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California Legislative Information. California Code LAB 1028 – Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation
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California Civil Rights Department. Complaint Process