may please the court my name is stephens people that i'm here today representing john g barrett the petitioner in this case mr barrett's anxiety bipolar disorder and depression improved to the point of now on disability only after a structured intervention which enabled him to develop coping skills other than alcohol abuse prior to mr barrett stay at the rescue missions man's recovery program multiple interventions were unsuccessful and enabling him to overcome his symptoms  mental health problems in addition to his alcohol it's trying to reconnect the counseling notes in their records related to his stay at the mission and those counseling notes paranoia he talked about isolation with others so he did get counseling it's there and they gave michael chen did they not admission as a person suffering from a co occurring disorder just orders co occurring disorders plural correct and mr barrett also know there were i think they label alcoholism by itself if that's all it is if there's a co occurring situation that would imply two or more this thirteen month long program included structured classes case management and the counseling sessions that i just mentioned plaintiffs also was suffering from grief over his brother suicide which had i think it affected him for a long time he worked through his anger and depression and as i said interpersonal conflicts with his spouse and his family i would say that the therapy you know it's why they do mention his alcohol use and sobriety it's some it's it's not a predominant theme in those counseling notes with the mission it's mentioned but i would say that it that mental health takes a backseat to the to the alcoholism and  submitted as part of the record so i believe that the he saw an outside therapist at the renewing life center and i believe that wise in the record either at the time of the hearing were mediately thereafter and then there were also that's in the abstraction of the exhibits then there are additional therapy notes with the with that in the mission and those are in the ear exhibits the record and that those i believe were submitted not only after the hearing but then we also filed the supplemental we also filed with the district court while this case was pending to have those added to the file said oh no that they were that some of the notes from the mission itself were in the file but the notes from the renewing life that were in so were there additional notes from the mission that were never put into the record from seeing a therapist they i think they were ultimately put into the record but i don't know that they were that they that they were garcia because he regularly refers to mr barrett as somebody with a primary psychiatric condition with a secondary and said let's use just order and  disabled due to his co occurring medical condition and he wrote a second letter in march of two thousand and fourteen and said that his patient was unable to function through the close period of disability and in the third letter he said that mr barrett was incapable activities of daily living and social functioning during the relevant time frame so the judge discounted dr garcia's opinions because she thought that his opinions indicated that point it was lost capable than he actually was during the relevant time frame however that the activities that she focused on were pretty i'd say basic activities she's reading at the mission which is apparently a laser activity she mentioned that she disagreed with dr garcia's referring to as having issues with hygiene but isn't a very controlled environment the mission absolutely your honor and the i don't know that they you know took note of whether or not he had hygiene issues at the mission or not but he certainly had the time to focus on recovery not only for the substance abuse but also for the mental health as well but didn't the counselor see notes suggest that he was able to take care of his basic hygiene that he got himself up took care of himself i think that there is evidence in the file that he did maintain hygiene at times but there's also function reports from his dad in the file which says that he couldn't do household chores during this timeframe that he was not able to live on his own that he but there's a separate issue from the hygiene issue i didn't see anything in the record supporting that when he was at the facility he couldn't take care of his hygiene and these needs affected seem like it was exactly the opposite right i don't know that i don't know that i disagree with you on that in your hon but i don't know that they fully documented you know every day what do you like least try to look like it seemed to me that they were more focused on it focusing on its coping skills so the question i think is then whether we just have an absence of there's an actual conflict i think that there's mostly just a lack of information there may be conflicts that times that that's not uncommon in any you know disability record he may have had good days and he may have had bad days also wanted to just slipped into a period of very severe dependence on alcohol after his brother took his own life why is that not the right way to read this record or your honor i will certainly he struggled with the alcohol abuse i think that in this record that mr barrett and his family have both consistently said that he was struggling with mental health significantly after his brother committed suicide and that this that triggered him to good morning may it please the court minimus sara mallya and i appeared today on behalf of the acting commissioner of social security congress has decided that as the court is pointed out that said if a disability claim it as an alcoholic and would not be disabled absent alcohol abuse he or she cannot receive disability benefits so the trick is which way does the causation arrow run because if he's a person with mental health problems and then secondarily you know self medicate them with alcohol then he can get benefits if he's an alcoholic who also at the same time but in a lesser sense has mental health issues that he can't get benefits which makes it really important to look at the professional evidence in the record counselor bloom's own treatment records while mr barrett was in the facility as judge seanie pointed out there is no evidence in the record that mr barrett was having difficulty with his mental health limitations aside from th him in the co occurring disorders program which is a different program from the alcoholism program i don't believe when he went into the mission and that the mission intake records directly indicate that issue and that's not even really the question what is the question here is would he be disabled absent that alcohol abuse in here what we had with the l j had is an extended period of time a three and a half year period of time where we i mean there's no dispute that mr barrett was had stopped using alcohol and was functioning very highly you know as you stated he's to be commended this is a success story but what that means is that during that closed period of disability for which he's seeking benefits really they l j had this period that showed so you think it's impossible that they fixed his psychological conditions and the alcohol use stopped as a result of that i wouldn't say that that's now and his life is good and so ergo it was the alcohol but actually if his psychological conditions got brought under control then his impulse to go to the alcohol would have also been brought under control and so you would actually have the same person that you have today somebody who is living a useful life and who is not depend on alcohol a couple of things i think that the a l j l g does when he's talking about and when she's talking about d evidence of that i knew all of the record evidence and and i thought as i didn't answer the complete question there please let me know but the all of the record evidence shows that  persistence or pays the you know apparently he some point obviously takes the else out the working full and part time for his father didn't really get me too far because if you're working for your mother or father you're really probably not in the same situation you're in with an outside employer to that point you're in if i can be well that's correct and generally and in these sorts of cases that that's an issue here mr barrett testified to what he was doing when he was working at his father's law firm he is summarizing depositions he's doing the work of a legal a law clerk and he indicated that that was difficult for him but that he was able to do it  and so there's all of the all of the records from that mission indicate that alcohol abuse is the primary issue here but certainly even even if the issues were  equally mr barrett's issues when we have the period of time where he's sober and we see that his ability to function very highly during that time that shows us that absent the alcohol abuse he is able to run because the apple cores are terrible and i know th the concertina examiners opinions are when you read that report based on his recounting your recovery from alcoholism and so i think it's in the l j was correctly in the decision discounted  gas for and explain why she did so but all she explained why it didn't seem she said she was given little weight to it so her so i believe that she does it that if you page twenty three of the record at the very bottom after she talks about the perfect performance for alphanumeric counting rights but you know let's just stop there for a minute because if somebody let's just a hypothetical person is clinically depressed you might actually be able to serial backward sevens you might be able to remember three things on a tray you know ten minutes later or seven things on a tray but you also might be unable to drag yourself out of bed in the morning and show up at work there are really different aspects of things and so when she says i'm not going to count the gab score because you can do alpha numeric counting intact memory an average intellectual ability i have an apples and oranges feeling about that statement and i think if you if you continue and since graduate and as a practicing attorney but just answered finishing on that thought the they all day indicated that after six months of treatment he's working full time he testifies that he's working hard job and then leader because he's so high functioning he's able to manage the the attendance four hundred plus residents and work with the assistant director at the mission and i place no weight on that he's in a structured environment sleeping checking off who shows up  my six year old granddaughter to do to be happy to do it for you i think that i think that a in terms of disability in the requirements for an individual to be disabled mr barrett was very high functioning and able to was not to disabled whether abstinence after commission and there are some side into as the star thirteen dash to peta support that we've got this period of absence he's improved you know automatically it shows that he was never mentally disabled and i think that it should be