What DLAD Asks about Personal Relationships and Contacts

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License Restoration Questions about Personal Relationships and Contacts

1. With whom do you live?
2. How long have you lived with that/those person/people?
3. Provide the names, ages, and relation of the individuals you mention.
4. Do these individuals drink?
5. If they do drink, how often do they drink?

Your personal contacts tell the hearing officer a great deal about who you are and how you live your life. The people we interact with on a regular basis have a very unusual way of shaping the way we think and act. It is especially important at this point in the hearing that you highlight the relationships in your life that help you abstain from alcohol. These contacts will assist you in times of temptation and, if the relationship is a healthy one, will give you an added measure of support and understanding when you need it the most. You should therefore not only describe your relationship in detail, but also describe how these people help you make good decisions. A decision to drink and drive could have been, in large part, avoided, had you been in the presence of someone who was truly aware of the danger of drunk driving and simultaneously concerned about your well-being. The Michigan Secretary of State wants to ensure that the people have may have compromised your safety, and the safety of others, are not the very same people in your life that continue to disregard your true interests. A showing that you have made new friends, and eliminated bad ones, goes a long way in showing that you have made measured progress in assuring you are not strong-armed into consuming alcohol by the peer pressure of indifferent people.

The identity and make-up of the people you see on a regular basis will, in a way, form a perception of who you are, as well. The hearing officer will measure the credibility of the people you mention and try to determine if those people have influenced you for the better. It does you very little, if any, good to attempt to show that you still associate with the same losers that contributed to your drinking. Remember, a showing of brute strength in the face of alcoholism is a losing position. In that light, trying to describe how your roommate still drinks in your presence will do little to convince the hearing officer that you are a strong person. Instead, it is the author’s opinion that such a scenario may lead the secretary of state to conclude that it is only a matter of time before you “fall off the wagon.” Remember, your dedication to sobriety is full time and non-stop. You cannot make concessions in your fight against alcoholism. Deciding to reside with a drinker shows a less than complete commitment to abstinence. If you lived alone and were truly committed to sobriety, you would not possess any alcohol in your home. A roommate or family member who drinks, even if only occasionally, compromises a strategy that you would otherwise take, if you could. The greater measures you take to eliminate the thought of alcohol in your life, the better you will be. The degree to which you take these steps will correspond, in a way, with the soundness of your plan to remain alcohol-free.

The length of time you have been around those in your inner-circle allow the hearing officer to determine if the people you mention can persuasively demonstrate that you do not drink. Do not be surprised if the people you mention are called or questioned to see if the information you provide about these people in is line with what these folks actually have to say. If, for example, you indicate that your roommate has been living with you for eighteen months and, at a different point in the hearing, you also mention that your last drink was over one year ago, the hearing officer may ask your roommate whether or not he or she had ever witnessed you drink alcohol in the last six months. If your witness/roommate indicates that you have, your chances of reacquiring your license are slim to none. Your roommate, in this example, has virtually nothing to lose in offering up testimony. As the motivation to lie is low or nonexistent, the hearing officer will likely defer to that testimony as more credible that your own in making a decision about your right to drive again. Ironically enough, however, the testimony of another can be more destructive or helpful than your own. This “two-edged sword” extends to any family member or friend that has contact with you on a fairly regular basis. Do not underestimate the power of third-person opinions and their effect on the DLAD hearing officer.

The hearing officer may be curious to learn if the people you mention for support are themselves drinkers. Keep in mind that the company you keep will reflect upon the perception you leave of yourself. The time and activities you spend with others will, in large part, shape some of the assumptions the hearing officer may have about your sobriety. It is important to spend your time with people that know and respect your decision to stay sober. It is not necessarily essential that everyone you know not drink, but it is critical to demonstrate that the ones you love and respect also love and respect you enough to eliminate at least a portion of your desire to drink by not drinking in your presence. The further you stay away from alcohol, the better. Accordingly, the further you stay away from people who drink, the better you will demonstrate your decision to eliminate all the temptations you can reasonably eliminate from your life. You would do well to show how you have cut yourself off from people who drink in excess or who do not otherwise respect sobriety.

The DLAD hearing officer may even ask how often your friends or family members drink. Beware of the complexity of this question: If your inner-circle drinks on a regular basis, testimony that demonstrates how often they drink could also demonstrate how often you are in a position to witness that drinking! Remember, it serves no real purpose to show how “strong” your will can be when others drink in your presence; a better safeguard for abstinence is to demonstrate that you do not surround yourself with alcohol or with people who consume it regularly. If your testimony about how often others around you drink also shows how often you voluntarily surround yourself with alcohol, you do yourself no favors before the Michigan secretary of state. Your lifestyle must be alcohol-free, and the people you surround yourself with must support that lifestyle choice. It is not critical that everyone you know not drink, but it is necessary to convincingly show that your friends and family show enough sensitivity about your abstinence to help, not hinder, your life’s goal of remaining alcohol-free and safe behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

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