Originally Posted by
Bucknut
My advice wait and see what happens. I had a buddy that failed a Dot test (alcohol) and the FAA let it slide the first time. There is more to this story but the point is that they may or may not put you in HIMS. He eventually ended up in HIMS after I went to bat for him the first time and found out later he was not completely truthful with me after the second incident. The other thing is please ask your self if you have drinking problem. I found out through watching him go through all this that denial is one of the biggest steps to overcome.
This Forum is full of self rightous people that have never drank too much or made a mistake. This forum lost all credibility when the moderator changed the title of a previous post of mine. Good luck and hope everything works out but don't put too much faith in advice from a forum.
Thank you for providing an example of a situation at least partly similar to mine and some valuable advice. Obviously I'm not here to convince anyone my side of the story, as no one knows me and there's zero point. The reason I came looking for similar occurrences is because of all the random info and opinions people provide me. This was a very strange and out of character accident, so everyone that knows me personally can't believe it happened at all. All my pilot friends flatly cannot believe me when I tell them that I think there's a high probability that I'll be required to do HIMS. My ex-Chief Pilot, my AME and every one of my friends all say there's no way this isolated incident away from work results in HIMS. But I find that people who don't know me typically say it will (and of course on here they also like to sprinkle in a large dose of "holier than thou.") Which is telling in-and-of itself because if this looks bad to someone who doesn't know me then I tend to believe that perspective since that's where the medical board will be coming from.
I have accepted the high probability of HIMS and other than the money and the inconvenience I don't have a problem with it. I haven't had a drink in the 4 months since this happened because alcohol is bad for brain injury recovery. I can quit forever if need be. I don't WANT to, because it's not a vice for me. No one close to me has taken this obviously GOLDEN opportunity to say "you know what, maybe you have a drinking problem?" But I would certainly do it if that's what the feds want. But like I said, my pilot friends, my wife, my AME, my mom -- no one can believe this, and no one believes that HIMS is possible, or necessary. I mistakenly thought I could find some examples of alcohol related injuries and their disposition here. In hindsight I should have known better, it's too hard for some to resist the opportunity this forum provides to sit in judgement of others.
Just a quick follow up, and feel free to message me if you want -- You said you "went to bat" for your friend, how so? With the FAA?