25yo dc in abusive relationship now addicted to cocaine

[thatwastheendofmytether]

My dd has been with her boyfriend for about a year. He was on bail for dealing when they met but assured everyone he was past all of that and had learned his lesson. Unsurprisingly, he is not.

The gist is that he’s got my dd supporting him financially - he lives in her flat, she works full time and pays for almost everything, she’s now on coke every day. I’m not stupid - she might have had the odd line socially now and then but nothing major. She had a big problem with weed in her teens and hasn’t been much into drugs since then. They have between them got her younger sibling involved in it (then 17, now 18) though they have had the strength to get away from it and them.

She is avoiding seeing me, presumably because she looks like she isn’t eating and sleeping properly and because he is manipulating her massively - I am the devil incarnate in his eyes. He’s done a great job of isolating her from all but one of her close friends and family. I’ve tried to get the police involved when he lost his licence earlier this year for drink driving but kept driving. They weren’t interested and in spite of telling them multiple times where he was and where he was going they failed to catch him.

I know that if they get caught in the car she’ll be driving under the influence. Her best friend (who is worried sick, and has also been cut off) told me dd is on coke all the time, she’d never be clear. So she’d fail a blood test for sure. If there’s anything in the car he’ll throw her under the bus soon as look at her. He’s a vampire.

He’s bringing in a bit of money now by being a “pay pig” - I think that’s the term? What I’ve been told is that this guy phones him and the boyfriend “speaks to him in a degrading way” and then the boyfriend gets to have a prepaid credit card to spend what he likes on for that. I don’t believe that for a second. I’m convinced there’s more to it and that my dd is potentially at risk of STIs etc. The boyfriend used to be a model and is used to being taken advantage of on the casting couch in order to get jobs, plus he’s known to have cheated on her many times. In the beginning I felt sorry for him because he had a rubbish childhood and wasn’t protected when he started modelling as barely more than a child. But now I’m just concerned about my dd.

I’m sorry about the stream of consciousness and I don’t really know what I’m asking for. Just support. And maybe suggestions of what to do next? Anything that might get the police to take notice? If I can get him away from her I can deal with her. He is the poison.

Honestly I can’t see how you can get the police to take notice in a way that won’t involved your DD too - I mean this with all the empathy, but she’s also an adult and will be held accountable too, if she’s trying to bring others into addiction or driving under the influence herself. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has gotten her into sex work too to help fund their habits.

Your best bet is to get someone to scare him away (this is what my DP and his two brothers did when eventually they could locate their sister), then get her somewhere to sober up and then get her to rehab, as some rehabs require a minimum level of sobriety upon entering. The main issue though, is that she needs to want it herself. She may not have reached her rock bottom yet.

I know. I know she has to be accountable. Her best friend was in tears the other day about how awful she feels “leaving” her in that situation. I had to tell her that she isn’t, my dd has cut her off and behaved really badly to her - for which she is accountable. I hadn’t considered her being a sex worker but that makes perfect sense too.

Shes not at rock bottom yet. She’s still got a job that she’s managing to hold down. She’s still useful to him. I think her rock bottom will come when she’s no longer useful to him. He’ll drop her like a stone then. No question about it.

Thank you for responding. I hope you had a happy outcome.

@thatwastheendofmytether I can’t speak for my DP’s sister because she’s still in rehab, but she’s been there for a couple months now and seems to be sticking to it. I can tell you however, my DP was bad, bad on it (think physical sequels sort of bad) and now he’s been sober for almost 2 years (I realise for many people this looks like nothing but it’s a massive achievement for him) and switched careers to work in drug rehabilitation and also does a lot of volunteer outreach. But this only happened after rock bottom and fortunately surviving two suicide attempts.

The bright side is that once she wants to recover, cocaine is a relatively easy drug to recover from. There’s still hope. Unfortunately it’s been so normalised in the UK that it’s an epidemic.

If you don’t know about it already, I’d suggest looking up the Class A People podcast, it has helped me a lot when my DP was in rehab.

I don’t know about it, thank you. I’ll look into it. I love a podcast when I’m pottering about. Two years is great stuff with heavy usage. Hoping it continues.

I just don’t recognise her. The old dd would have gutted anyone who’d offered her brother class as and she used to be a bit wary of acquaintances who were reliant on them. But now she’s one of them.

Im sure we’ll get her back. I just hope it’s before something too permanent happens like a prison record or something worse.