Question: Is alcoholism covered in the americans with disabilities act of 1990?

(Posted by: mike h on 2009-02-02 17:53:49)

Posted by: rlbjr22 on 2009-02-02, 18:03:26

Being a mental health professional with 20+ years experience, with much of it involving alcohol and other drug abuse and dependency, I think yours is a great question. I hate to admit I don't know the answer, but I just had to voice my opinion on your question since I worked so long and hard with people with chemical addictions. God Bless you.

Posted by: chiliswoman on 2009-02-02, 18:05:35

Yes. "people with alcoholism who are substantially limited in a major life activity will have a disability under the ADA. . However, even if a person with alcoholism meets the definition of disability, an employer may discipline, discharge, or deny employment to an alcoholic whose current use of alcohol adversely affects job performance or conduct to the extent that s/ he is not "qualified " (EEOC, 1992). " jan.wvu.edu/ media/ alcohol.html triangle.bizjournals.com/ triangle/ stories/ 1997/ 02/ 03/ smallb8.html

Posted by: Raven on 2009-02-02, 18:07:07

To be protected under the ADA, you must have, have a record of, or be regarded as having a substantial, as opposed to a minor, impairment. A substantial impairment is one that significantly limits or restricts a major life activity such as hearing, seeing, speaking, walking, breathing, performing manual tasks, caring for yourself, learning or working. As far as I know, alcoholism is not classified as an impairment. Also, you must be able to perform the essential job duties, with or without "reasonable accomodations ". I can't think of any accomodations that an employer would be able to make to enable an alcoholic to perform job duties. People with alcoholism have been defined as individuals with a disability under this definition, but employers still have the right to deny employment, as defined in later updates to the law. So I would say, no.

Posted by: justmeinthisworld on 2009-02-02, 19:55:10

Yes, it is considered a disability--but any accommodations still need to be reasonable-maybe excused unpaid OCCASSIONAL extar absence(depending on teh job) showing up drunk or being routinely unabble to work due to a hangover probably wouldn't need to be accommodated-- A recovering alcoholic cannot be denied a job due to their status as beign in recovering-that would be discrimination but it doesn't really matter-unless the alcoholic is rich--i found out teh hard way--that they EEOC takes a few token cases to publicize-and screws over anyone else-- In 2005-91% of teh disability discrimination cases they were supposed to investigate were rubber stamped NO REASONABLE CAUSE--and these cases are profictable enoguh for lawyers to take on contigency--so if you can't afford a lawyer-theres not much you can do... Even the cases that were stamped CAUSE are questionable-as it seems they were only right 50% of teh time