Are drug addiction and alcoholism disabilities?

[FireStarterRN]

I've noticed more and more patients who have ended up on government disability payments. I know it because they tell me during casual conversation in the course of my caring for them.

Often they are active drug addicts or ETOH abusers/addicts. I know this because as their nurse I review their H&P during the course of a day of caring for them as patients. I also have access to their drug and ETOH screens on their lab profiles.

Is active alcoholism or drug addiction now considered official disabilities under SSI? Also, does SSI make people accountable with random drug or alcohol testing?

Usually these patients are males, often in their 40s or 50s, although I recently cared for a man who was in his 30s. He had used heroin and cocaine immediately prior to his admission for a revision of a blown knee. He told me that he received disability.

If a person receives disability for, say, a mental health problem, shouldn't they be drug tested? And, how do they afford heroin, meth, booze, if they are on such a meager income? Shouldn't Uncle Sam make these folks more accountable?

[iloveclay]

My blood is boiling just reading these comments. These comments are being being made by ignorant people who are operating on myths. I am 54 and have been on SSD for 1 yr. I have bipolar disorder and two hip replacements. I applied at the urging of my sister. I was approved the first time. I have worked since I was 17.....12 yrs in nursing and 15 in engineering. I cannot work now due to my physical limitations. My physical limitations affect my personal life as well. I do not wish for my life to be like this and am offended that I am "milking" the system. May be you should get your facts straight. But we are talking about two different programs, SSI and Social Security Disibility.

[c_beshore_rn]

I'm so sorry your offended. I think everyone knows there are people that need SSD or SSI and have legitimate claim to it and SHOULD get it. I was just reporting some of the things I've seen....an working for a dr that encouraged and helped able bodied men and women that could work get SSI kindof torked me a little bit. I realize there are people that should get disability, thats what it's there for. But, there are people that do "milk" the system and those are the people I get upset with. Because of there abuse of the system, people like u, that do need the help have to be screened, rescreened, denied, redenied, and go unemployed for 1 year to get the help they need.:redbeathe

[Magsulfate, BSN, RN]

I'm so sorry your offended. I think everyone knows there are people that need SSD or SSI and have legitimate claim to it and SHOULD get it. I was just reporting some of the things I've seen....an working for a dr that encouraged and helped able bodied men and women that could work get SSI kindof torked me a little bit. I realize there are people that should get disability, thats what it's there for. But, there are people that do "milk" the system and those are the people I get upset with. Because of there abuse of the system, people like u, that do need the help have to be screened, rescreened, denied, redenied, and go unemployed for 1 year to get the help they need.:redbeathe

I agree there are some people who really do need SSI, and there are also just as many milking the system. I've known a mother (with her own serious undiagnosed mental illnesses) put her child into a psych facility numerous times, for reasons that the child could not control,,, and then apply for ssi and GET IT for ALL OF HER CHILDREN... apparently she had done this with all of them,, and I met her during the last round with her last child. It is pathetic,.

[Magsulfate, BSN, RN]

My blood is boiling just reading these comments. These comments are being being made by ignorant people who are operating on myths. I am 54 and have been on SSD for 1 yr. I have bipolar disorder and two hip replacements. I applied at the urging of my sister. I was approved the first time. I have worked since I was 17.....12 yrs in nursing and 15 in engineering. I cannot work now due to my physical limitations. My physical limitations affect my personal life as well. I do not wish for my life to be like this and am offended that I am "milking" the system. May be you should get your facts straight. But we are talking about two different programs, SSI and Social Security Disibility.

Sorry that you are offended, I am sure these posts are not about you and others who actually are disabled.

[NurseDiane]

Magsulfate--I have actually heard that many people are getting disability/SSI for their children who have mild ADHD or mild autism. How can that be considered a disability if the kids go to school and play with their friends, etc.? Unless the kids are essentially non-functional and need day programs or institutionalization I don't understand how this happens. My cousin has severe Down Syndrome, and if you knew what his parents went through to get him SSI/disability you'd die. It was denied several times before approval, even with doctor's diagnoses and other diagnostic results. Obviously he could never live a normal life and go to school or hold down a job. He can't even go to the bathroom by himself.

The bottom line is that people DO take advantage of the system---but, the government allows it. (I could drag in the issue of illegal immigration and women jumping the border when they are 9 months pregnant and in labor to give birth to their children in America, but I will stay off that subject right now.) As I said before--that is the difference between people with PRIDE and people who have none, who would rather collect welfare than work, even though they are perfectly capable of doing so. The "octomom" is collecting benefits for a few of her kids that are "borderline autistic", or that is what I have read, anyway. People learn how to work the system, and you can if you want it bad enough.

Certainly there are many people who truly NEED SSI and disability due to totally valid diseases and disabilities. Unfortunately, those are the people who get raked over the coals with waiting periods and not being paid for months and months, requiring lengthy documentation of the disability and multiple IME's by doctors who are being paid by SSI/disability programs, so of course they will say that the people are fine to return to work, and obviously they can't. However, there are a ton of people collecting benefits that could do things to help themselves get off of it----like morbidly obese people who still eat 50,000 calories a day, or someone with COPD who still smokes 3 packs of cigarettes a day (I have a cousin who is both obese with COPD, who still smokes a ton and who eats like a pig and doesn't get off her ass to do anything but go to the bathroom). Furthermore---people who have gotten injured at work end up in a battle between SSI/disability and Worker's Comp and their own private insurance, and it ends up being many months or even years before they can collect anything.

It is a terrible system.

[exnursie]

My blood is boiling just reading these comments. These comments are being being made by ignorant people who are operating on myths. I am 54 and have been on SSD for 1 yr. I have bipolar disorder and two hip replacements. I applied at the urging of my sister. I was approved the first time. I have worked since I was 17.....12 yrs in nursing and 15 in engineering. I cannot work now due to my physical limitations. My physical limitations affect my personal life as well. I do not wish for my life to be like this and am offended that I am "milking" the system. May be you should get your facts straight. But we are talking about two different programs, SSI and Social Security Disibility.

Iloveclay;

I am confused about something here.... previously you said that you have had your license reinstated and wanted to return to work as a nurse... because SSDI does not meet your financial needs... I also read that you had considered substitute teaching,,

Maybe I am not seeing the whole picture here, but it seems to me that if you are looking for work as a nurse, you really don't qualify as someone who should receive "disability" with the inability to work??

https://allnurses.com/nurses-and-recovery/going-back-hprp-381548.html

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Iloveclay;

I am confused about something here.... previously you said that you have had your license reinstated and wanted to return to work as a nurse... because SSDI does not meet your financial needs... I also read that you had considered substitute teaching,,

Maybe I am not seeing the whole picture here, but it seems to me that if you are looking for work as a nurse, you really don't qualify as someone who should receive "disability" with the inability to work??

https://allnurses.com/nurses-and-recovery/going-back-hprp-381548.html

Sounds like she's busted...

[leslie :-D]

Maybe I am not seeing the whole picture here, but it seems to me that if you are looking for work as a nurse, you really don't qualify as someone who should receive "disability" with the inability to work??

https://allnurses.com/nurses-and-recovery/going-back-hprp-381548.html

maybe she is ready and able to return to work at this time.

if so, it still would not negate the need for ssd up until this point.

and, i may be wrong, but i believe ssd would not be automatically cut off once she starts working.

i think they allow for a transition period, so may be able to collect it for a few more months after being employed.

just another perspective.

leslie

[sissiesmama, ASN, RN]

In my previous posting in this thread, I hope I didn't offend anyone by the comments I made. I was in NO way trying to say that I would screw up 10 years of sobriety just to "get a check" . When I lost my job as a nurse r/t diversion, I went to my church and the minister gave me a few transient bags, which consisted of vienna sausages that king of thing.When I made the comment about me hearing about staff in the state of La. getting disability, I may have given people then wrong idea. I would never give up 10 hard painful yrs of staying clean just to get "a check".

My PCP, cardiologisy, and interventional cardiologist all agreed that I would not be able to go back to work even at a desk job for quite a while. My body can't even stand up for short pds of time, and cant even sit up at a desk for a short time period.

I go to New Orleans next Monday for my surgery and am still praying for a good outcome. In the last 3 months, I have started seizing and having episodes of syncope. Since the seizure, I am unable to drive for 6 moinths.

I have labile HTN, and cardiac disease as were a murmur and the congenitlal defect - large enough to have altready have pulmonart and renal damage they may not be anle to treat.

Not sure why I am writing this, but if you wouldn't mind, say a little prayer for me on Monday the 29th and Tuesday the 30th, which is the actual OR date. I didn't want to think I was one of those people that aren't applying just for the heck of it. I am nervous and actually terrified.

Thanks for your prayers, Anne, RNC:nurse:

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Anne, Good luck and you are in my thoughts

[sissiesmama, ASN, RN]

Anne, Good luck and you are in my thoughts

Hey! Thank you so much!! I appreciate the good thoughts! With me and the dh both being RNs, we know some of the ins and outs of cardiology. Sometimes that's good and sometimes not. The dh and I go EARLY on the am on June 29th for a "meet and greet" with the CV doc and ANOTHER Echo, and I'll be rolled in to OR at 0800 on the 30th, so I'm running out of "panic time". I am SO lucky that dh is going with me, he is the calmer of the two of us.

So, I guesss you could say that the 30th is "C Day", cardiac day! Yuck!

Thanks! Anne, RNC