You Showed Up for Everyone Else. It's Time Someone Shows Up for You.
You Showed Up for Everyone Else. It's Time Someone Shows Up for You.
The Mojave Team | Mojave Complete Recovery
There is a particular kind of person who becomes a first responder.
Not because they had no other options. Because something in them was built for it — the call toward service, the tolerance for chaos, the instinct to run toward what everyone else runs from. Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers — these are people who have made a daily commitment to absorb the worst moments of other people's lives and keep functioning.
What that commitment costs them rarely gets the attention it deserves.
The statistics are not ambiguous. PTSD rates among first responders reach up to 32 percent — compared to a rate of 12 percent among the general U.S. adult population. Suicide rates among law enforcement and firefighters consistently exceed line-of-duty deaths. Substance use, chronic pain, relationship breakdown, sleep disorders, and career-ending psychological injury are endemic in first responder populations in ways that most departments acknowledge quietly and address inadequately.
The culture of service that makes first responders extraordinary at their jobs is often the same culture that makes them least likely to ask for help.
At Mojave Complete Recovery, we believe that has to change. And Arizona law is on our side.
The Officer Craig Tiger Act — What It Is and What It Means for You
In 2012, Phoenix Police Officer Craig Tiger was forced to use deadly force on a man who had assaulted Craig, his partner, and members of the general public in a Phoenix park. Two years after the incident, Craig committed suicide — his death believed to be the result of undiagnosed and untreated PTSD.
Following his loss, the Arizona Police Association and the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona worked together to create legislation that would become the Officer Craig Tiger Act, signed into law on April 23, 2018.
Craig Tiger's story is not an outlier. It is a pattern. And the Act named for him exists because Arizona recognized that first responders deserve more than the silence that surrounded his struggle.
Here is what the law actually provides:
The Officer Craig Tiger Act provides first responders up to 36 licensed counseling visits per incident, with the licensed mental health professional of their choice, paid for by the employer at rates set by the Industrial Commission of Arizona — when the employee is exposed to any one of the following qualifying events in the course of duty: visually witnessing the death or maiming of one or more human beings or the immediate aftermath of such an event; responding to or being directly involved in a criminal investigation involving a dangerous crime against children; requiring rescue in the line of duty where one's life was endangered; using deadly force or being subjected to deadly force in the line of duty; or witnessing the death of another firefighter or police officer while engaged in the line of duty.
Coverage begins with 12 initial visits. If the licensed provider determines that additional counseling is likely to improve the employee's condition, an additional 24 visits within one year of the first visit may be utilized.
Employers are prohibited from requiring a first responder to use PTO or other leave to attend counseling visits. If someone is unable to return to duty during treatment, they will not lose their pay or benefits.
First responders have three options for accessing care under the Act: through the Employee Assistance Program, through a workers' compensation claim, or through a provider of their own choosing — so long as that provider agrees to accept payment from the employer at rates set by the Industrial Commission of Arizona.
Mojave Complete Recovery is that provider.
We accept Tiger Act cases. We understand how to work within the workers' compensation framework that governs these claims. And we are built to provide the kind of care this law was designed to make possible — not just technically compliant counseling, but a genuine, whole-person clinical response to what first responders carry.
What First Responders Actually Need — And What Most Clinics Miss
The Officer Craig Tiger Act covers counseling. That is an important starting point.
But counseling alone — as critically important as it is — addresses one dimension of what first responder service does to a person.
The physiological toll of years in high-stress, high-trauma environments is real and measurable. Chronic cortisol elevation from sustained threat exposure reshapes the nervous system, disrupts sleep architecture, suppresses hormonal function, and drives inflammatory processes throughout the body. The relationship between the psychological and physical dimensions of first responder health is not a metaphor. It is biology.
A first responder who has spent twenty years absorbing trauma does not just need to talk about it. They need a clinical framework that understands how those experiences have been stored in their nervous system, how their hormonal environment has adapted around years of sustained stress, and how their physical health has been affected by the same exposures that drove them to seek mental health support in the first place.
That is what Mojave provides.
The Mojave First Responder Program
We have built our first responder services around the reality of what this population experiences — not a generic mental health program with first responder language bolted onto the outside of it.
Counseling and Trauma-Informed Care
Our licensed clinicians understand the specific texture of first responder trauma. The hypervigilance that makes going home hard. The emotional numbing that develops after years of witnessing things the human nervous system was not designed to process repeatedly. The identity disruption that comes when a career that defined someone is suddenly threatened or gone. The moral injury that accumulates when the job asks things that conflict with a person's deepest values.
We provide individual counseling, trauma processing, and the kind of sustained therapeutic relationship that the Tiger Act was designed to fund. We work with the whole history — not just the incident that triggered the claim.
Psychiatric Care and Medication Management
For first responders dealing with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and related conditions, psychiatric evaluation and medication management is often a critical part of the clinical picture. Our psychiatric providers understand the occupational context — including the career implications of certain diagnoses and the specific concerns first responders have about confidentiality and fitness for duty evaluations.
We navigate those concerns with you, not around you.
Addiction and Substance Use
Substance use is disproportionately prevalent in first responder populations — not because of moral failure but because alcohol, painkillers, and other substances become coping mechanisms for pain that has no other outlet in cultures that don't allow for vulnerability. The self-medication is understandable. The consequences are devastating.
We provide medication assisted treatment, addiction counseling, and the kind of dual-diagnosis clinical work that addresses both the substance use and the underlying conditions driving it. We do this without judgment and with deep respect for the courage it takes to walk through our door.
Hormonal Health and Physical Wellness
Chronic stress devastates hormonal function. Years of shift work, elevated cortisol, poor sleep, and physical demands produce hormonal environments that directly affect mood, energy, cognitive clarity, and the ability to engage with psychological treatment.
We evaluate and address the physical and hormonal dimensions of each patient's presentation as part of the integrated treatment picture. For many first responders, optimizing the biological environment is what allows the psychological work to finally land.
Workers' Compensation Navigation
We are experienced in navigating the workers' compensation system on behalf of our patients. We understand how to document, bill, and advocate within that framework so that first responders can focus on their recovery rather than the administrative complexity of accessing it.
The Weight of the Job
We want to say something directly to the first responders reading this.
The things you have seen have weight. The things you have done — even when they were right, even when they were necessary — have weight. The culture you work inside, the one that says you handle things and move on, that says what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, that treats help-seeking as incompatible with the identity of someone who chose this profession — that culture is costing people their lives.
It cost Craig Tiger his.
The strength that brought you to this work is real. What you have given your community is real. And none of that is diminished by the fact that the accumulation of what you have absorbed across a career has consequences that deserve professional attention and genuine care.
The intent of the Craig Tiger Act is to provide the best care possible for employees who are exposed to traumatic events in the course of duty — to ensure these individuals can return to work and their normal daily lives.
Return to work. Normal daily lives. That is what is possible. That is what we work toward with every first responder who walks through our door.
You Choose Your Provider
This is worth repeating because many first responders don't know it.
Under the Officer Craig Tiger Act, you have the right to choose your own mental health provider. You are not required to use your department's EAP. You are not required to see whoever your employer directs you to. You have the right to choose a provider who is qualified, who understands your situation, and who you trust.
That choice matters enormously. The therapeutic relationship is not incidental to treatment outcomes — it is central to them. Choosing a provider who understands first responder culture, who will not pathologize the normal responses to abnormal experiences, and who is equipped to address the whole person rather than just the presenting symptom is one of the most important decisions in the recovery process.
We are that provider for a growing number of Arizona first responders. We would be honored to be that provider for you.
Ready When You Are
You don't have to wait for a crisis. You don't have to reach a bottom. The Tiger Act exists precisely to create access to care before things fall completely apart — because early intervention produces better outcomes than waiting until the weight becomes unbearable.
If you have experienced a qualifying event under the Act, you may already be entitled to care that costs you nothing out of pocket.
If you are a first responder dealing with the cumulative effects of a career in service — the sleep that doesn't come easily anymore, the stress that followed you home, the drinking that got heavier than you intended, the anger you can't always explain, the days when the job that used to give you purpose feels like it is taking something from you — we have a place for that too.
Mojave Complete Recovery is a whole-person mental and physical health clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. We serve first responders, veterans, and the people who have spent their lives showing up for everyone else.
It is your turn.
Mojave Complete Recovery accepts Officer Craig Tiger Act cases and works within the Arizona workers' compensation framework. We provide counseling, psychiatry, medication assisted treatment, hormone optimization, and integrated wellness care for first responders and veterans.
To find out if you qualify for coverage under the Tiger Act or to schedule a confidential consultation, contact our team today.
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