Self inflicted?

You'd think that if you injured yourself or incapacitated yourself deliberately that the powers that be would not allow you to claim more than the bare minimum of benefits, rather than the additional invalidity/incapacity benefits available.
Yes I know, that was incredibly naive of me...

Express.

A JOBLESS layabout who rakes in taxpayers’ cash for alcoholism has been branded a “sponger” by a furious judge.

Judge John Walford told feckless Stanley Clifton, 31, that he was “the embodiment of the welfare dependency ­culture”.

Father-of-four Clifton receives hundreds of pounds a month in handouts, including incapacity benefit after claiming he was unfit for work because he drank seven litres of strong cider a day.

Clifton was given a community order with an unpaid work requirement at Teesside Crown Court in March 2009 for common assault.

But Judge Walford was told on Tuesday that he had failed to turn up for appointments to do the work.

And he had completed only 49 hours of the 100-hour order before probation officials realised he was ineligible for the work because he claims incapacity benefit and cannot be insured.

As far as I'm aware alcoholism is a self inflicted condition, having known an alcoholic in my family for several decades, I'm pretty much sure that they can work and carry out tasks if they stay off the drink. In fact alcoholism merely describes the condition of not wanting to come off the drink, rather than an addiction as such. Nor is it a disease, Malaria is a disease, Cancer is a disease, cholera is a disease. You have a choice whether to abuse alcohol or not - no one holds a gun to your head and forces drink down your neck.

The worst part of this article is when the "defendant" claims he now only drinks when he's stressed out. I'm just dying to hear what someone who doesn't need to work for a living gets stressed out about. Because it can't be the worry of where the next penny is coming from. He strikes me as the perfect Labour voter. Left school at 18 and spent 13 years loving that Labour kept him in whatever he needed.

So this "alcoholic" has managed to make HIS problem a taxpayer's problem. It's not that I'm unsympathetic. It's just that I've hit the limit. Now I really don't care. If this guy was cut off from all welfare and was later found dead in the gutter I wouldn't even yawn. I'll save what's left of my compassion for someone who deserves it.