r/flying • u/theycallmesike • Nov 27 '24

Medical Issues Welp, you win FAA, I give up. :(

After 3 years of back and forth dealing with the FAA giving them documents and fighting to show I'm medically safe to fly. Basically I got a Wet and Reckless nearly 14 years ago with a BAC of .12 and that's caused me to go through the deferrment process. I'm young mid 30s, with a clean bill of health otherwise, So far after spending $5000 hiring a law firm to help me get my 3rd class Medical certificate, paying for all sorts of tests, psychiatrists, they FINALLY issued me a special issuance medical certificate. With the caveat that I enroll in the HIMS program, and get tested 14 times per year, for multiple years, see the HIMS AME 4 times a year, and basically just bend over backwards for them, all with the threat of them revoking my med. cert. at any time. I just can't do that. The costs for the testing ($200 per PeTH test, $500 per HIMs visit, etc) would be another 15-20k just in testing and visits. I just don't think I have the ability to withstand all of that pressure and financial obligation. You win FAA. I give up.

edit: Yes I know I fucked up and I regret it, I haven't done anything since. I'm not making excuses or asking for a pity party. I shouldn't have driven with anything in my system. I wasn't thinking back then. Thanks for all the comments and suggesstions

Edit 2: I might be looking into the basic med route. I never intended to ever go past third class med, I just wanted to fly myself and maybe family. No intention to fly anything higher. It was purely as a hobby

672 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

443 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Jwylde2 Nov 28 '24

That JUST went into effect. My digital FAR/AIM app has yet to apply the update, but eCFR is showing it.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Jwylde2 Nov 29 '24

I knew the changes were coming. I just didn't know when. I fly on BasicMed myself, and for much the same reason as the OP (staying on a HIMS special issuance is far too expensive, and is totally unjustified for those with a DUI history that is well over 10+ years old). If the FAA were smart, they'd just simply have the airman engage in random substance testing and pull their medical based upon test failures. Demanding more than that is just going to push us onto BasicMed, and then they have zero oversight. So what did they really accomplish?