Counseling Drugs (MPU)
Your Situation
This webpage will interest you, if you need an MPU due to drug offences. While in the case of the legal drug alcohol an MPU is only ordered, if you were driving in a state of drunkenness, the situation with illegal drugs is more complex. Although the legal foundations of an MPU order do constantly change – which has lead to considerable uncertainty especially in the case of cannabis – we may yet discern some basic principles of duration.
Possessing drugs, consumption and MPU order
Generally, the mere possession of drugs is not sufficient to order an MPU. The driver’s license office needs legally usable clues, that you have also consumed these drugs. This encompasses for example a blood sample on the day of the offence, a positive drug screening or a statement in front of the police, in which you admitted to have taken drugs. If such clear evidence is missing, an MPU will, even in the case of so-called “heavy” drugs, not be ordered.
“Light” versus “heavy” drugs
Should the consumption however be proved one way or the other – mostly in case of a blood sample at the day of the offence – we have to distinguish two variations.
a. Cannabis (Hashish/Marihuana) as a so-called “light drug”
Cannabis resp. its main effective substance THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) plays insofar a special role, as here the mere consumption does not automatically lead to an MPU. The criteria of an MPU ordering are however constantly changing, and have yielded to a discussion of threshold values which is inscrutable to outsiders. Therefore only the concrete inquiry can clarify, if you will have to face an MPU.
Up to now the following trend is discernible. If a blood sample of less than 1 ng/ml of pure THC is measured on the day of offence, and if the value of the carbon-acid (THC-COOH) is less than 10 ng/ml, you have a good chance of not having to deal with an MPU. If one of these parameters is higher, or if other complicating moments – like the consumption of alcohol – are present, or if you repeatedly were caught with cannabis while driving, you have to be prepared for two consequences. Either the driver’s license office will ask for a special medical expertise (Facharztgutachten), or it will additionally require an MPU. This order can also follow instantly.
b. Other “heavy” drugs (Ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines (e.g. speed) etc.)
All other drugs, be it stimulating drugs (XTC, amphetamines, cocaine), narcotic drugs (heroine, opiates), or hallucinogenic drugs (LSD, magic mushroom [containing psilocybin/psilocin] etc.) are considered "heavy" and will result in an MPU order, if consumption can be proved. Usually, police control has delivered a blood sample which will prove that you have driven while being intoxicated.
Summary
Let us be clear: if consumption of drugs can be substantiated, the driver's license office will carefully examine your case, and will decide according to the special circumstances, if you need an MPU or not. Normally this can already be determined studying the files. Sometimes, it is necessary to phone the responsible employee.
We may therefore assume that you need to present an expertise concerning your ability to drive and that you want to be prepared the best possible way. Are you looking for an expert who will support you? A partner who understands your sorrows and fears, your difficult professional and maybe private situation. Someone who will help you and will guide you on your way to regain the driver's license? Then you are just right here and should read on.
The Informative Consultation
My individual counseling is balanced to your needs. In a first informative consultation, we will get to know each other. I will be able to get to know your case, to study the files, and I will be in the position to present you with an overview about what you will have to expect in the MPU. You will learn about the criteria of a positive MPU, and will understand, what you will be asked for on the day of the MPU.
Will you have to stop consuming any drugs (e.g. Cannabis), or will a controlled consumption be granted, as long as you don't drive? Do you need drugs screenings or a hair analysis? Do you have to present an MPU counseling to the expert? Will you have to visit an addiction counseling centre and which reliability periods do you have to reckon with?
If these items are clarified, it is already possible to give a recommendation at the end of the informative consultation. You will be told, if and when an MPU would be a good idea. According to your situation, we can then arrange a counseling instantly, or – if this makes sense – at a later time.
The Counseling (MPU-Preparation)
Module 1. Biographical Sketch
The counseling starts with a biographical sketch. It has turned out that your chances to receive a positive expertise rise, if the expert understands your personal situation. I also can better adjust my certificate of your participation to your personal needs. Don't be afraid. You decide what you want or don't want to say. In an expertise you also only have to tell the expert as much as he needs to reasonably understand your case. I am by your side and would like to help you. In a climate of mutual respect and trust, we will soon find connections and personal experiences which are prone to have high explanatory value in any expertise.
Module 2. Initial Drug Experience
Questions concerning the development of your drug consumption, e.g. a close inspection of your drug past are central to the expertise. They can take up half of the exploration time and first address the initial drug experience. What has once been so fascinating about the drug? How did you image the supposed effect? Were you afraid of possible criminal consequences or did the prohibition tempt you? How important were your friends? How did you experience that first consumption and how did you judge it afterwards? In our counseling, we will carefully analyze this experience and we will secure important insights which you can then utilize in the MPU. You will be able to make clear to the expert, why in an often unconscious dilemma between pleasure ("the stuff really gets me, I want to have that again!") and fear ("this is forbidden, I should stay away from drugs!") you have finally decided to consume the drug another time or more often.
Module 3. Further Development, Self Betrayal and Regularity
The expert has noticed why you initially have been fascinated by the drug. He wants now to hear from you why you did not terminate in the period following. He will probably assume that you have simply wanted to try out the drug at first and that you have - in a second step - decided to repeat this experience, e.g. to take the drug more often. He also expects usually rightly so that with months or years the frequency and quantity of your drug consumption has increased. How did you justify these changes, this creeping undermining of the own principles? How did you whitewash yourself resp. which excuses or minimizations did help you? How did the drug itself manipulate your thinking and behavior, and how did it enable you to leave the drug in your life against legal risk, bad consciousness or objections of your partner. And how was it possible that this drug took increasing hold of your past time resulting in a regularity which you observed and yet have not efficiently objected?
Of course your case may have evolved differently, and only the very own, mutual quest can exhibit the truth. The experience yet shows that usually a regularity, even a kind of psychological dependence is relevant if an MPU has been ordered resp. the driver's license been confiscated.
Module 4. Self-Assessment and Self-Criticism
When presenting your very personal drug history, you already approach the center of any MPU. For on the one hand the expert wants to know when with whom you have taken which drugs. On the other hand he will additionally ask how you judge this development. My counseling will painstakingly stress to hand out to you important key concepts of a critical examination of the past, relevant to the MPU. Let us name the concept of "door opening", i.e. the subtle mental manipulation when experiencing a drug high, which you cannot ban from your memory any more. For with each new drug, a door of desire will open which cannot be closed any more. You can renounce to go through this door, but you will not lose sight of the stimulus of intoxication. Further important concepts as loss of control, tolerance increase, veiling of danger in the fascination of the effect, loss of social reality (resp. flight from reality) or - if you do not shy a drastic term - psychophysical self-rape can be addressed and be harmonized with your life story. The precious part of an individual counseling consists in the ability to filter out of a multitude of variants those possibilities which match your case. This make an individual counseling mandatory in the drug case, and this may be one of the reasons, why you don't want to have a group course.
Module 5. Drug Consumption Table
Your surely know that the MPU comprises a medical and a psychological part. Thus you will be examined by a doctor and a psychologist. To both - especially the doctor - you will have to present a compact survey of your earlier drug consumption. It is not sufficient to approximately know which drugs how have taken. Experts appreciate, if you can present this information in a systematic way, e.g. in shape of a graph or a table which you can by the way submit in the examination. But don't be afraid. Together, we will work out a drug consumption curve that equally corresponds to the truth and to the formal expectations of the expert.
Module 6. Drug Consumption Motives
Why-Questions are delicate in any MPU and normally very difficult to answer. Why did you get involved at all in drugs? Why in certain drugs? What did the high mean to you and what effect did it have on you? Even if it is right that in case of psychological (and of course physical) dependence the consumption should be explainable by an inner craving, the expert wants to hear specific motives which have been relevant to me. You have to be able to point out what the drug personally meant to you, what had made it attractive, in short: what had been its very own seductive potential. If you can answer the questions regarding your past drug consumption, i.e. if you can biographically explain it, the expert will confirm the necessary problem awareness. You have identified the function, the "role" of the drug(s) in your life and have critically confronted your drug past.
Module 7. Knowledge and Critical Assessment of Drugs
In the second part of the MPU you will not only be asked to assess you own situation. The expert will also want to know what you generally think about drugs. Do you clearly see the dangers of drugs and which responsibility society imposes on you as human being and motorist. No one will deny your right to have an own opinion. It is however worth to know the facts which make any drug consumption problematic. I call this part of my counseling "Drugs and Truth - the Cost of Drug Consumption", and I can promise that you will be taught interesting concepts. We will also talk about the effect of drugs on health, about the fatal mechanism of drug action, about the relationship between craving and psychological (resp. physical) dependence, about the increase of tolerance and the vicious circle, about the addiction shift, the problem of dosage (overdose), and lots more. Of course we will not exclude the ethical and criminal issue and we will investigate what lies behind the passing on of drugs (dealing). You will get to know conclusive arguments against any drug consumption and you will be able to explain in the MPU what makes drugs worrying.
Module 8. Drug Problem and Drug Dependence
With a couple of extra questions the expert tries to explore your self-assessment. Did you have a drug problem? Have you exhibited drug abuse or have you even been dependent, and if: physically or psychologically? Do you think that you have smoked or sniffed too much, and do you believe that you were in charge of your behavior. Here, it is paramount to check your self-image, i.e. to retrospectively assess if your own drug story conforms to the reality as the expert has investigated it beforehand. Questions of this kind are delicate as well, since often the use of terms result in misunderstandings. I help you to avoid these misunderstanding. You will be able to coordinate your answers to the expert language, e.g. to translate folk terms into the specialist terms of the expert.
Module 9. Change and Motives of Abstinence
The fact that you are only admitted to the MPU or that you only have prospects of succeeding if you can document one year of drugs abstinence (in rare cases 6 months), implies that you have undertaken certain changes in your life. It could, however, be that these were only superficially motivated, meaning that you have indeed for a certain time period abstained from taking drugs, but otherwise everything in life has been the same. You would then have kept the same friends, the same leisure activities, the same professional or private context conditions and with them a high degree of relapse probability. There the expert will interrogate concrete changes and abstinence motives. We shall collect your changes in attitude and behavior, and we will together find out where you might even go further. We will also discuss a couple of interesting concepts, i.e. we will cast a critical view on the drug scene or we will ascertain why in a system of social drug consumption and potential denunciation by "wrong friends" it is hardly possible to remain hidden. If you are ready to implement the necessary changes, meaning if you are able to realize the necessary inner and outer distance to the world of drugs, you have excellent chances in an MPU.
Module 10. Relapse Risks and Prevention Planning
The MPU typically closes with a preview of the future, i.e. with a judgement of relapse risks and "prevention planning". You are certainly correct stressing that this part should more prominently be investigated, but it is firm tradition of the examination that only, after the past has thoroughly been scrutinized, future prospects are open to enquiry. Since many clients take drugs again resp. since the expert assumes a high relapse risk, he will try to reliably find out, if you are aware of that risk and what you intend to do for being able to lead a permanent life without the drugs. Here, it is not sufficient to say that you do not want to consume drugs any more. You have to be able to explicate the foundation of your decision, i.e. your personal stability, and you have to explain in detail that necessary changes have occurred in your life, your leisure activities, your handling of problems, or your circle of friends. You also have to show that you have successfully implemented concrete prevention strategies.
Prospects of success
Don't hold this meticulous questioning against the expert. He wants to make the right decision, e.g. he want to find out if you rank among the sincere and motivated drivers: those who have honestly worked with themselves, or if you belong to those who want to cheat their way through an MPU. If you possess the cited honesty and motivation, you are an excellent candidate for an MPU counseling. If you have completed my course, if you have studied the information of our flipchart, and if you have also met the necessary conditions and reliability terms of your case, then you have excellent chances of a positive expertise.
Time frame
As you can see, not only the course takes its time. Reliability periods have to be met. Therefore it is advisable under all circumstances to make an appointment for an informative consultation. This does not oblige you to take a full counseling. You will just get early important information. You will save a painful loss of time and money, and you will know what is in front of you and what you yourself can do. It is a pleasant side effect of the counseling that with timely contact, the waiting period imposed by the court can – without extra costs – be shortened.
Therefore don't wait! Call me!
Secure that important personal information!
Scope of the Counseling
The individual counseling drugs (MPU course) generally consists of 8 one and a half hours coachings. Sometimes more sessions are needed. This is especially the case, if in addition to the drug issue a offence of drunk driving or other violations against traffic regulations (or the criminal law) have occurred. Usually the informative consultation will show how many extra sessions are to be reckoned with. Sometimes phone calls to your driver's license office will bring clarity. I will gladly carry them out for you.
Costs of the Counseling
The individual counseling alcohol containing 8 one and a half hours coachings will cost 95 Euros per session including certification of your participation. To compensate for the effort of a first phone contact and the informative consultation, I would kindly ask you to bring 95 Euros to this first appointment. Should you later consider an optional text examination, this amount would become payable a last time.
Certificate or Participation
I know that you have to earn the money for an MPU counseling, and I want your investment to be worthwhile. I want you to profit personally from the course to be able to go into the examination with a happy and anxiety-free spirit. I also want you to be understood by the expert who shall competently assess your case from the beginning. Therefore every client will receive an individual certificate of participation which names the relevant contents of the course and aptly presents your situation. Before entering the room, the expert will be able to form a valuable impression; the frame for an understanding examination is set. Employees of your driver's license office appreciate such a certificate, since it enables them to quickly justify a new examination, in case a negative one has already been issued.
Don't let this happen! Act in time! Call me and arrange an appointment for a first informative consultation. You will then know what you have to do to regain your driver's license with high probability.