Drug/Alcohol abuse and S.S.D.I. can you lose your benefits?

Published July 9, 2010

Question by A N N A B E L L E: Drug/Alcohol abuse and S.S.D.I. can you lose your benefits?
My mom is on social security disability for a # of psychiatric diagnoses. I know her lawyer told her in the beginning that if her disability was due to drug and alcohol then she wouldn’t qualify. When determining her disability she did not have a problem. She never had a problem. Now she does and I want her to go to rehab for her alcohol dependence. Can she risk losing her benefits if she goes in?

Best answer:

Answer by chiliswoman
If the psychiatric diagnosis she had when she first received SSDI are still under treatment than she does not risk losing her SSDI from getting treatment from alcohol addiction.

But she must continue to take her medication and go to counseling. Her psychiatric labels should remain her primary diagnosis.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!