Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 5/16/2008

Question
Hi.  My daughter had her 18th birthday about 2 weeks ago, and a week ago she told us that her boyfriend of 2.5 years is addicted to meth.  He was in a rehab facility 2 weeks ago but used and was asked to leave the facility.  He's now back at home with his parents (he'll be 20 in a month) awaiting an opening in rehab facility.  My daughter says she never used, and I really want to believe her.  I have had no indication that she's done drugs.  She's a successful student about to graduate from high school and begin her college education.  My concern is that she sees no reason to end this relationship and says that her boyfriend "needs her" and she loves him.  This has been a rocky relationship with much mistrust on our (parents) part.  We learned that our suspicions about our daughter's boyfriend were correct, and even worse than we expected.  He was dealing meth for a time to support his habit.  He's been doing meth on and off for 4 years.  I want our daugther to end the relationship, but she seems determined to "fix" him and "find" him.  What can I do?  I'm afraid for her future.

Answer
Dear Lynn,

I can quite understand your concern about your daughter's relationship with an addict. Your daughter may realise that a relationship  with an addicted person can not last for ever, and perhaps your daughter just wants to help her boyfriend. Drug addiction is a destroyer of relationships. Let us hope that your daughter is mature enough enough to take responsibility for her own decisions.

Drug addiction is very difficult to treat and the recovery rate is pretty low. But nevertheless drug addiction can be treated if therapists understand the underlying biochemical abnormality, that causes a person to become addicted to drugs. Unfortunately most drug rehabilitation centers fail in that respect.

Perhaps you may join your daughter helping her boyfriend by getting him proper treatment from a Nutritional Doctor or a Clinical Nutritionist or a Nutritional Psychologist, familiar with nutritional medicine.

Please read:

Drug Addiction is a Nutritional Disorder at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/drug_addictions_nutritional_disorder.htm...

and also:

Self-help Personal Growth Psychotherapy at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles/self-help_personal_growth.html

to get an understanding of what nutritional medicine can do for drug addiction.

I hope I have been of some help.

_______________________________________________
Jurriaan Plesman
Editor of
The Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia.
www.hypoglycemia.asn.au
Author of "Getting off the Hook"
Freely available at Google Book Search
Skype: jurplesman