Expert: Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist - 7/17/2010

Question
My partener of 8 years who i have a daughter with is doing more and more heroin. He says if we move away he will be able to quit but i am doubtful and feel so let down i don't know if i can even take that chance. We hardly talk unless he's high which just gives him more excuses to be high as he says he can only talk when he is high. When we met he barely touched drugs just pot once in a while then a year later he got into crack cocaine and it got heavy very quickly and he tried to stop on his own and relapsed a couple of times and in the end we moved almost 200 miles away where we lived for 3 years and he did so well (he didn't touch it ). But at the end of the third year a mate of his introduced him to heroin and he then messed everything up. He kept it a secret, stopped working, i was ill at the time and didnt work so he had no support and carried everything on his shoulders so i can completely see why he felt like escaping. But his drug taking ended up in us having to leave behind everything we'd made and move back to our home town. We now have a daughter and he has been taking heroin for almost 3years. As far as i know he tries to monitor it and started trying to only take it once every month but then it was once a fortnight and then once a week. Now he is in denial saying it is once a week when it is once every 2 or 3 days. Ok i know that is nothing compared with alot of people but it is still not right especially for our daughter. I know he must be trying really hard but i am so full of fury sometimes i just don't care and i want to give up and turn my back on him. But that is no good for our daughter and no good for me cuz i love him so much. But enough is enough its gotta stop. The other thing is he is on perscription drugs and some are tranqulisers which i'm pretty sure he takes to many on purpose so he'll have heroin one day sleep wake up take perscription drugs be asleep in an hour (because they knock him out as he takes too many) and sleep til evening then after a few hours take more then repeat in the morning when he wakes up as if to speed up the wait for the next heroin. But he is missing our daughters life and god knows what damage he is doing to his body i feel so angry sometimes i wish i'd never met him, then the other times I feel so sorry for him and hopeless. He says if we can get out of where we live he can quit cuz he won't be around the same temptations. I want to do this but one i don't have money and im not very practical and two if i do manage to make it happen and he lets me down i don't think i could forgive him. I was only young when we moved the first time it was worth it but hard. I want to put my faith in him again but how do i know if he is truely ready to quit or if he has just got his head in the clouds, or i have? If he is serious i will do what ever it takes to help him.  If there is any advice or any ideas or encouragement you could give me i would be very grateful many thanks,   liz

Answer
Hi Liz,

You are in a dreadful situation. You have to understand that an addict cannot be stopped from taking his drugs of addiction. His drugs are more important than you or your daughter. The disease of addiction is a destroyer of human relationships, a complete destroyer of personality. A drug addict cannot feel "normal" without his drugs and drug addicts are every good at manipulating their loved ones.

Drug addiction is a disease in the literal sense of the word and cannot be treated by any form of talk therapy. Attempts at withdrawing from drugs may help temporarily is some cases, but unless the underlying depression is treated, they will soon revert to drug taking. It needs to be treated medically and not by drugs, but by means of nutrition. This may take considerable time.  Most drug addicts are hypoglycemic, that is a sugar handling problem and the first step in treatment is going on a hypoglycemic  diet. (See our web site). To understand drug addiction please read the following article:

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

and discuss this with a Nutritional Doctor, Clinical Nutritionist or a Nutritional Psychotherapist, if self-help therapy fails. Most people can help themselves by going on a hypoglycemic diet.
For more information use our "Search our Web Site" and look for articles containing  topics entered in search engine.

It may also pay to read my book "Getting off the Hook" see below.

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Jurriaan Plesman, Nutritional Psychotherapist.
Hon. 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

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