Defer: Substance Abuse 48 hours Urine/PEth

P

Pilotman2323

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Feb 20, 2025
Messages
2
Display Name
Display name:
Pilotman2323
I received my deferral notice from the FAA today and was kind of blind sided by it being for substance abuse. It says I have to take a urine test and PEth blood test within 48 hours of receiving the notice.
First thing is it business days so would I have until Monday or do I only have until Saturday? Second I recently had a couple drinks at a company happy hour so I am not going to pass at least the blood test. Am I screwed if I fail this initial test for alcohol?
When I submitted everything my HIMS AME said the only thing to worry about was two separate occasions of taking Zoloft and being diagnosed with obsessive depression disorder during the pysch evaluation so I didn’t even think to not drink alcohol.
 
Pilotman2323 said:
I received my deferral notice from the FAA today and was kind of blind sided by it being for substance abuse. It says I have to take a urine test and PEth blood test within 48 hours of receiving the notice.
First thing is it business days so would I have until Monday or do I only have until Saturday? Second I recently had a couple drinks at a company happy hour so I am not going to pass at least the blood test. Am I screwed if I fail this initial test for alcohol?
When I submitted everything my HIMS AME said the only thing to worry about was two separate occasions of taking Zoloft and being diagnosed with obsessive depression disorder during the pysch evaluation so I didn’t even think to not drink alcohol.
Click to expand...

bg,f8f8f8-flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.jpg


Well this isn’t going to turn out well


Whomever advised you didn’t tell you that’s you’d have those tests?
 
Can we assume that you called a cab or Uber to get home?

Life is full of choices, and some choices make other choices unavailable. Your failure to avoid the wrong drinks may make flying un available. Ginger Ale or 7 UP are my choice when with drinkers. Nobody notices whether they have mixers or not.

That was the result from a choice you made.
 
geezer said:
Can we assume that you called a cab or Uber to get home?

Life is full of choices, and some choices make other choices unavailable. Your failure to avoid the wrong drinks may make flying un available. Ginger Ale or 7 UP are my choice when with drinkers. Nobody notices whether they have mixers or not.

That was the result from a choice you made.
Click to expand...

Forty years ago, I would have agreed.

But today, DUIs are being handed out like candy. You don’t even have to be driving or under the influence, it’s become an industry.

You could get a DUI just from drinking a 7UP with your friends. More and more videos are surfacing of cops messing with people’s lives, even those who blow a 0.0.

This guy also had to go through the whole FAA process because of it.



Here’s some good info on dealing with the FAA

 
The OP did say he had a couple of drinks at happy hour. Since he is worried about residual alcohol just days later, it must have been more than one.

He also thinks that delaying from Saturday to Monday will make the alcohol undetectable, so he does understand how fast it is metabolized, and hopes to slip through, even though he understands that he is on a no alcohol trip through his medical journey.

Again, a choice made, not compatible with his current desired path in life.
 
geezer said:
The OP did say he had a couple of drinks at happy hour. Since he is worried about residual alcohol just days later, it must have been more than one.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter if he only had one or not. This is not just a BAC test where you'd have metabolized the alcohol sufficiently in 8 hours. He said PETH, which will show any consumption for 3-12 days prior (there's good reason why you gotta get tested within 48 hours... see?).
 
geezer said:
The OP did say he had a couple of drinks at happy hour. Since he is worried about residual alcohol just days later, it must have been more than one.

He also thinks that delaying from Saturday to Monday will make the alcohol undetectable, so he does understand how fast it is metabolized, and hopes to slip through, even though he understands that he is on a no alcohol trip through his medical journey.

Again, a choice made, not compatible with his current desired path in life.
Click to expand...
Not sure where your judgment is coming from. The FAA does not require nor expect teetotaling, and the OP reports no history of alcohol abuse or dependence. If your personal belief is that drinking and flying are completely incompatible life activities, that's your choice.
 
He was deferred. To assure successful completion of that process, drinking is an avoidable risk. However long the process lasts, just don't drink. That should be a small price to pay for a clean medical.

There is an open bottle of wine on my kitchen counter, and in due time, I will have a drink. If I were in the process of clearing a special medical, and transitioning to a clean one, I would not drink, period, until done and good.

I drink, I drive, and I fly. I do not drink and do either of the others the same day, since I was in my 20's. I have learned at the graves of friends.
 
geezer said:
He was deferred. To assure successful completion of that process, drinking is an avoidable risk. However long the process lasts, just don't drink. That should be a small price to pay for a clean medical.

There is an open bottle of wine on my kitchen counter, and in due time, I will have a drink. If I were in the process of clearing a special medical, and transitioning to a clean one, I would not drink, period, until done and good.

I drink, I drive, and I fly. I do not drink and do either of the others the same day, since I was in my 20's. I have learned at the graves of friends.
Click to expand...
Well, why didn't you give him that advice when he was originally deferred? Apparently his AME didn't, since he wasn't deferred for substance abuse.
 
Lindberg said:
Well, why didn't you give him that advice when he was originally deferred? Apparently his AME didn't, since he wasn't deferred for substance abuse.
Click to expand...

OP mentioned he was already involved with a HIMS AME.

We don’t know why, but that indicates a limited number of reasons being causal.
 
Lindberg said:
Well, why didn't you give him that advice when he was originally deferred? Apparently his AME didn't, since he wasn't deferred for substance abuse.
Click to expand...
This is my first time going through all the medical process, I was expecting to be deferred for the SSRI use and depression. I definitely wouldn’t have drank if I knew this was even a possibility I just had no clue and my HIMS AME didn’t mention it at all. I only drink a couple times a month at most so it wouldn’t have been an issue to stop. Maybe I should have known but hard navigating all this with no knowledge was just relying on the HIMS AME to guide me.
 
I’m confused…he was deferred for SSRI/zoloft, why would the OP think that being abstinent would be something expected from the FAA? If he drank before he got the deferral letter stating alcohol would be tested/monitored, and if OP has never been diagnosed with substance abuse/dependence, how would they know this would be an issue/anticipate that testing was to be expected?

I honestly don’t understand why FAA would go this route for SSRI deferral??
 
Pilotman2323 said:
When I submitted everything my HIMS AME said the only thing to worry about was two separate occasions of taking Zoloft and being diagnosed with obsessive depression disorder during the pysch evaluation so I didn’t even think to not drink alcohol.
Click to expand...

TCABM said:
OP mentioned he was already involved with a HIMS AME.

We don’t know why, but that indicates a limited number of reasons being causal.
Click to expand...
 
bbchien said:
This is not going to turn out well.
Click to expand...
How does that work if applicant was deferred for one thing then FAA tags on something else? I get it if you’re doing a D/A HIMS, but seems like a “gotcha.” Maybe that doesn’t matter?
 
One question that I often ask people: Could you stop drinking entirely if you had to in order to reach some goal?
If they say "Yes", I advise them to just stop drinking now.
It can never help in your life.
 
The problem here is some idiot AME or “faa certified” shrink is gonna try and equate a peth test result to some bogus definition of alcohol abuse or dependence.

1. Peth tests are junk science, not fda approved, not well tested, meaningless

B. Not only do they use a bogus definition for abuse/dependence, there certainly isn’t any even reasonable correlation to that and the level of peth in your body (presuming it was even produced in your body).

There is no reason you shouldn’t be able to have a drink while going through this process. It wasn’t explained to you that it was gonna go down this way because most AMEs don’t know all this. Who WOULD try to explain it and then charge you money? It’s a scam farce of a process, best explained by administrative geniuseses.

That being said, at this point in time if you want their junk medical cert, you gotta deal with their junk administrative medical process….
 
Two episodes on Zoloft = recurrent disease....eg ongoing.

Alcohol use is someplace in the record already submitted (obviously), that "blind sided by it being for substance abuse. It says I have to take a urine test and PEth blood test within 48 hours of receiving the notice.
First thing is it business days so would I have until Monday or do I only have until Saturday? Second I recently had a couple drinks at a company happy hour so I am not going to pass"

No awareness of the situation, suggests to the FAA evaluators, one of the criteria for dependency.....and if the evaluation by the psychiatrist shows anything more than "no alcohol use disorder" he then is a dual diagnosis candidate.
Lotsa requriements for that....:(
 
Last edited:
Back
Top