The Board denied service connection for an acquired psychiatric disability, including anxiety and depression, as well as alcohol abuse. The Veteran's current diagnoses do not meet the criteria for service connection.
The deciding factor: There is no evidence to support a diagnosis of an acquired psychiatric disability other than alcohol use disorder, which cannot be service-connected due to VA policy prohibiting compensation for disabilities resulting from the veteran’s own alcohol or drug abuse.
- Claimed conditions
- Acquired psychiatric disability (anxiety and depression), Alcohol use disorder
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 27, 2020
- Citation
- 20006383
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,341 · Granted: 33% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 20006383.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's requests for an effective date prior to June 3, 2020 for the grants of service connection for PTSD and tinnitus. The decision states that VA did not receive an ITF in September 2019 as claimed by the Veteran or her representative, and thus no earlier effective date can be granted.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient medical opinions regarding the etiology of the Veteran's acquired psychiatric disorders, particularly PTSD. The Veteran is seeking service connection for these conditions and related stressors.
- Granted
The Veteran's service-connected psychiatric and substance use disabilities required inpatient treatment at a VA-approved residential treatment center (RTC) from April to June 2020, exceeding the 21-day threshold for temporary total rating. The Board granted this claim.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that the April 2021 VA examination is inadequate to rate the Veteran's tension headaches and PTSD. Therefore, a remand is necessary to obtain updated private treatment records and conduct new examinations.
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