CBR alcohol assessment trick questions: forum claims versus the psychiatrist

There's no official list of trick questions in the CBR alcohol assessment, whatever a forum claims. The psychiatrist asks ordinary history-taking questions. Your answers are then placed next to your blood-alcohol level, your lab values and the police file. The only thing you can really get wrong is being inconsistent.

That isn't our opinion. It's the core of the guideline the examining psychiatrist works from. The Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) and the NVKC revised it in July 2026. Below you'll read what's really asked and weighed, and what you can measure yourself beforehand.

We see plenty of people who read forums for weeks and still walk in unprepared. Preparing here doesn't mean memorising answers. It means knowing your own facts.

Which questions can I expect during a CBR alcohol assessment?

Expect questions about how much and when you drink. And about what happened on the day of the arrest. The guideline asks the psychiatrist to probe the extent, the consequences and the behaviour around your drinking. That includes how many standard drinks you have per occasion on average.

In practice there are four groups of questions.

• Your drinking pattern. Drinks per week, drinks per occasion, and the difference between weekdays, weekends, holidays and special occasions.
• The arrest. What time you were stopped, how many kilometres you'd driven, and what you'd drunk that day and when.
• Consequences and behaviour. Whether drinking caused problems at home, at work or with your health, and whether others commented on it.
• Other complaints. Mood, anxiety, sleep and concentration, because the psychiatrist also screens for other conditions.

A Dutch standard drink contains about 10 grams of alcohol, according to the Voedingscentrum. Convert your own glasses in advance, because a large glass of wine at home often counts as two. The Gezondheidsraad advises no alcohol, or at most one drink a day. That's the yardstick your pattern is compared with.

Why do forums call them trick questions?

Forums call them trick questions because one answer can be set against another. "After how many drinks do you feel something?" sounds harmless, but it says something about tolerance. "Do you need your licence for work?" sounds kind, but you drove after drinking anyway. That feels like a trap.

The guideline describes the same mechanism, just without the drama. Self-reporting of how much someone drinks is "fairly low" in reliability in these assessments, the committee writes. So the psychiatrist mainly asks about consequences and behaviour. And watches the consistency of your account.

The law-firm site that ranks first for this search says 80 percent fail. We couldn't find a source for that figure, and the guideline doesn't mention it. Don't carry it into the interview.

Our position: the only real trick question is one your blood or the police report contradicts. Anything you can check in advance, you can therefore get straight in advance. Not by gaming it, but by knowing your own numbers.

What does the CBR consider alcohol misuse?

The CBR treats alcohol misuse as a psychiatric diagnosis. It's based on all clinically relevant data and/or the DSM-5 classification alcohol use disorder. The old concept of "alcohol misuse in the broad sense" was dropped in the 2026 guideline.

Under the Regeling eisen geschiktheid, anyone found to misuse alcohol is unfit. That holds until a recurrence-free period of one year has passed.

Two sentences in the guideline matter most to you. First: a raised level at a single arrest is "not enough for a conclusion of alcohol misuse". Second: tolerance "cannot be established on the basis of the blood-alcohol level at arrest".

For a conclusion of misuse, the guideline requires at least two circumstances. A high reading is at most one of them. An abnormal CDT, an earlier arrest or a story that doesn't add up can be the second.

That's the opposite of what forums claim. There, 1.8 per mille without visible drunkenness is "proof of tolerance". The guideline says the psychiatrist may not simply conclude that.

Which questionnaire does the psychiatrist use in the CBR assessment?

For alcohol, the guideline recommends the CIDI and/or the CAGE as an aid to history-taking. To each of the four CAGE questions, the psychiatrist must add: "in the past twelve months". A separate CBR psychiatric assessment questionnaire you can rehearse doesn't exist.

The CAGE asks whether you ever thought you should cut down. Whether criticism of your drinking annoyed you, and whether you felt guilty about it. And whether you ever drank in the morning to get going. Four honest answers, no puzzle.

Drugs are different. The 2022 drug-misuse guideline names the ASSIST, the DUDIT and the SDS. Whether they're used is up to the psychiatrist. Only the DUDIT has been validated in the Netherlands.

What does the psychiatrist put next to your answers?

The psychiatrist sets your account against three other sources. The police file, the physical examination and the laboratory results. The guideline recommends that the lab results are available during the interview. An abnormal value can then be discussed with you on the spot.

That's the "trick question" forums talk about.

Since 2020, MCV, AST and ALT are no longer part of the protocol. Their diagnostic value was too low. The guideline doesn't recommend PEth or EtG in hair or urine for this assessment either. Standardisation falls short.

What you read on forums about "the CBR hair test" is therefore mostly wrong.

Important: normal lab results don't rule out misuse. The guideline states that "non-abnormal laboratory results do not always argue against establishing alcohol misuse". A week without drinking can already normalise the values. Conversely, one raised CDT doesn't prove misuse; two circumstances are needed there too.

Do the same trick questions apply in the CBR drug assessment?

In the CBR drug assessment the questions differ, but the principle is the same. The drug-misuse guideline (NVvP, 2022) has the psychiatrist ask which substances you use. And how: swallowing, smoking or injecting. How much and how often also comes up: every day, at weekends, or only at parties. And again it's about discrepancies between your account and the file.

One question stands out. "Did the person know that too much had been used to be allowed to drive". You'll also be asked whether you use alone or in company. And whether you hide your use from family.

It's about insight, not a confession. We see people stumble here most often.

The laboratory part differs per substance. The guideline has separate biomarker modules for cannabis, cocaine, amphetamine and GHB. A result documents recent use, but according to the guideline it isn't decisive on its own.

Zuivertest tests cocaine, amphetamine, ketamine, GHB and 3-MMC, among others, in a panel or single screening. We don't test for cannabis or MDMA. If you want to know where you stand beforehand, choose a panel that fits your substance.

How long without alcohol before the CBR test?

There's no fixed period. CDT has a half-life of about 15 days (Stibler, 1991). After four to six weeks without alcohol, a raised value is back to normal in many people. Gamma-GT follows within a few weeks.

But the psychiatrist asks about your pattern over the past twelve months, not just the last few weeks. Our advice is simple: don't count on the calendar.

Stopping "for the test" therefore helps less than forums promise. A normal CDT next to a story of daily drinking until last month is itself a discrepancy. Stopping because you want to stop, and demonstrably keeping it up, is something else. At a second assessment, the one-year recurrence-free period is what counts.

What can you do yourself before the interview?

Know your own numbers. Request the police report, convert your drinking pattern into standard drinks, and have your CDT and gamma-GT measured. Then you know what the psychiatrist will have in front of them, instead of hearing it there.

Say two men are stopped on the same Saturday night at 1.6 per mille. One says "two beers", the other says "a bottle of wine". For an 80-kilo man, 1.6 per mille roughly fits seven to eight drinks.

Only the second story matches the number. That difference is the whole trick question, and we see it every week.

Reading your own CDT and gamma-GT

A CDT test at Zuivertest measures the same marker, in a certified laboratory. The result is yours, and only you decide whether to share it. It isn't a CBR examination and the CBR doesn't adopt our result. It does tell you what the psychiatrist will see.

Further reading: how the CBR alcohol and drug assessment works step by step. What the CDT value for your driving licence means. And how long the result takes and what if you fail.

Licence just seized for the first time? Read what happens after a first seizure for alcohol. If you've been sober for months, 6 months without alcohol shows what your blood reveals by then.

Frequently asked questions

What is an interview with a psychiatrist at the CBR?

It's an assessment of your fitness to drive by an independent psychiatrist, commissioned by the CBR. The interview takes about three quarters of an hour. It covers your alcohol or drug use, your health and the arrest. The psychiatrist then writes a report to the CBR, and the CBR takes the decision.

What are the criteria for a CBR alcohol assessment?

Under CBR policy, an assessment follows above 1.8 per mille, or above 1.3 for a novice driver. Also after three alcohol arrests in five years, or if you refused a breath or blood test. Below those limits the CBR usually imposes a course: the LEMA or the EMA. On a second offence the recidiveregeling alcohol may apply.

Which questions does the psychiatrist ask at the CBR?

The same kind of questions as for alcohol: what, how much, how often and in which situations. And what happened at the arrest. Plus whether you knew you'd used too much to be allowed to drive. The guideline also has the psychiatrist look at other mental-health complaints.

Sources

• Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychiatrie and NVKC, guideline Alcoholmisbruik in het kader van rijgeschiktheidskeuringen, modules Anamnese, Psychiatrisch onderzoek, Laboratoriumonderzoek and Afweging van de onderzoeksbevindingen, 2026 (richtlijnendatabase.nl)
• Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychiatrie, guideline Drugsmisbruik in het kader van rijgeschiktheidskeuringen, modules Anamnese, Vragenlijsten and Psychiatrisch onderzoek, 2022 (richtlijnendatabase.nl)
• Regeling eisen geschiktheid 2000, paragraph 8.8, as cited in the guideline
• Stibler H. Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin in serum: a new marker of potentially harmful alcohol consumption reviewed. Clin Chem. 1991. PMID: 1764777
• Niemelä O. Biomarkers in alcoholism. Clin Chim Acta. 2007. PMID: 17045579
• Trimbos-instituut, alcoholinfo.nl, Alles over de EMA/LEMA-cursus (blood-alcohol limits per measure)
• Voedingscentrum, the standard drink; Gezondheidsraad, Richtlijnen goede voeding 2015

Every test result at Zuivertest includes a professional assessment from a BIG-registered doctor. For treatment decisions, discuss your results with your GP.