Utah Addiction Treatment — Real Recovery. Real Results.
For Pilots and Referring Partners
Please complete this form to refer a pilot to our HIMS Program or to request information regarding HIMS services.
A member of our team will contact you shortly.
The conditions that put a pilot into HIMS are defined by federal aeromedical regulation, not by how serious it feels from the inside. Lions Gate Recovery treats and documents to that standard from intake, so the question of whether you qualify is answered correctly instead of optimistically.
Most pilots measure their situation against their own judgment or against what a regular doctor would say. The problem is that neither one is the standard that matters. Under 14 CFR 67, the FAA defines substance dependence and substance abuse more strictly than the DSM-5 criteria a typical clinician uses. Behavior that a family physician might not flag can still meet the federal threshold, and a single alcohol-related arrest can be enough to trigger the requirement.
That gap is where pilots get hurt. Someone decides privately that their drinking does not count, or that one incident was a fluke, and they make a recertification decision on the wrong definition. Knowing exactly where the federal line sits, and being honest about which side of it you are on, is the first real step. We help you get that answer right.
Alcohol accounts for a large share of HIMS cases, but the program and our treatment reach every substance that brings a pilot into it. Lions Gate Recovery treats alcohol use along with opioids, prescription medications, stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, sedatives including benzodiazepines, cannabis, and polysubstance use. Each one is assessed against the federal aeromedical definition rather than a general clinical one, because that is the assessment a HIMS case is built on.
We are people in long-term recovery who built a structured, accountability-driven program, and that approach matters here. The FAA is not looking for a pilot who completed a comfortable stay. It is looking for a documented, defensible record of real change, and that is the kind of record our program is built to produce.
Many pilots who enter HIMS for substance use are also carrying something underneath it. Depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress are common companions to addiction, and treating the substance use while ignoring what sits beneath it is how relapse gets built in. We treat these co-occurring conditions alongside the substance use as part of one integrated program, so the clinical picture your HIMS Aviation Medical Examiner receives reflects the whole pilot, not half of one.
Handling these conditions honestly is also part of protecting the certificate. A record that addresses the underlying condition is stronger than one that pretends it was not there, and it reflects the kind of sustained stability the FAA expects a pilot to demonstrate across years of monitoring.
A standard treatment center documents to clinical criteria because that is what its patients need. A pilot needs more than that. The same set of facts, written to DSM-5 criteria in one chart and to 14 CFR 67 in another, can move a case forward or stall it, and most pilots do not discover the difference until it is already a problem.
Lions Gate Recovery treats and documents to FAA aeromedical standards from the first day, runs the full continuum HIMS requires under one program, and reports to your HIMS AME on schedule. Getting the standard right at intake is not a detail. For a pilot, it is the difference between a year that ends back in the seat and a year that has to be partly redone.
You do not have to wait for things to get worse.
