Diana is a 33-year-old nurse who was working in a hospital in Goderich, Ontario. Despite coming across as a friendly person, Diana has a social anxiety disorder that she has been battling since her late teens. When she was in her mid-twenties, Diana started drinking heavily. Alcohol consumption became more and more of a crutch, and it is a poorly kept secret among her family and friends that Diana is an alcoholic.
During a particularly stressful time several years ago, Diana was frequently missing work and even came in to work intoxicated. After several warnings from her employer, Diana stopped drinking, but she was unable to stick with sobriety.
When Diana became pregnant she knew the severe side effects that drinking could have on her baby, so Diana abstained from drinking again. Once her daughter was born, however, Diana could no longer resist the urge to drink. The pressures of being a new mom were compiling
and though she knew it was wrong, she felt completely out of control. She was at home all day with her daughter while her partner worked.
After her maternity leave was finished, instead of returning to work Diana applied for long term disability benefits. Her doctors knew about her addiction and supported her claim. She knew that she couldn’t go back to work in her current condition, but her family needed all the financial
support they could get with the new baby. When Diana received a rejection letter from the insurance company, it said that unless Diana was willing to go to an in-house treatment program for her alcohol addiction, they would not approve her claim. Diana was not in the position to leave her daughter, as there were no other caregivers for the young child. She felt stuck and hopeless.
Diana’s mother saw a Share Lawyers Facebook post, and read a blog about addiction as a
disability. Though this was not news to her, Diana felt empowered to face her addiction and disability issues head on. She called Share Lawyers, and, without having to come into the
office in Toronto, they arranged a telephone consultation and took on her case.
With a firm diagnosis, Share Lawyers was able to prove that Diana was genuinely disabled.
With the help of Share Lawyers, Diana won her case, received the benefits she was entitled to,
and is finally on the path to treatment with her family by her side. She is hoping that one day
she will be able to go back to nursing.
This information is brought to you by Share Lawyers, Ontario’s Leading Disability Insurance Lawyers.
[All names and identifying details have been changed to protect the confidentiality of all involved.]
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