Can Substance Abuse Affect Your Social Security Disability Claim?
Alcoholism and drug addiction are harmful to a person’s health. It leads to heart disease, liver failure, nerve damage, personality disorders, and other health problems. Although you may suffer from a medical condition unrelated to alcohol and drugs, a contributing factor to your overall disability may be related to drugs or alcohol. For this reason, if you apply for disability benefits with the Social Security Administration (SSA) your application will be affected. If it is discovered that your current medical condition is caused or aggravated by drinking or drug use, you will likely be denied social security disability benefits. But if your health status is independent of your alcohol or drug dependency and would undoubtedly exist even if you stopped drinking or using drugs, you can qualify for disability. This is true whether or not your drinking or drug use caused the physical or mental problems in the first place. For instance, you can be found incapacitated resulting from irreversible liver damage caused by chronic alcoholism or drug abuse. But if your drinking or drug dependence can’t exacerbate the problem, you can be entitled to benefits.
The medical consultant assigned to you by the SSA will find out if your drinking or drug use is a “contributing factor material to the determination of disability.” He or she will do this by first analyzing whether your physical and mental being including your addiction is rendering you unfit for work. If the medical consultant decides you are disabled, and the SSA has received evidence that you are addicted to alcohol or drugs, the medical consultant will then start a process to determine if your alcohol or drug dependence is contributing to your disability. If it is, you won’t get benefits.
Substance abuse can affect your social security disability claim. There are various nuances and elements unknown to the public which can be navigated by an expert Oklahoma social security disability lawyer
Burton Law Group
You may have applied for Social Security Disability benefits and been denied, or, you are about to apply. Those who utilize the services of a disability attorney have a higher success rate in gaining approval for their claim.
Between 70 and 78% of applications filed with the Social Security Administration are denied. If this happens to you, you have just 60 days to create and submit your appeal. Again, having our skilled social security disability attorney assist you with the appeal will increase your chances of acceptance – and, there is no fee for our law firm unless your claim is accepted.
Burton Law Group, P.C. is well known for the attention we give every person, which separates us from the firms where you are just another case