'My beautiful little girl was dragged into the secret world of P' | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Rotorua father Dennis Hanson said listening to Paul Holmes talk about the ravages of methamphetamine touched more than one raw nerve.

Mr Holmes was guest speaker at a Whakatane meeting that addressed drugs within the community. The meeting attracted about 400 people at the Liberty Centre and was organised by Whakatane West Rotary. It raised about $5000 which will go to the Stellar Trust to be administered within the Eastern Bay.

Mr Hanson, who has had two daughters involved with P, said he often thought about Mr Holmes when he was dealing with his own family issues.

"Paul was going through similar family problems associated with P at the same time I was," Mr Hanson said.

"I often thought about him and felt for what he was going through."

Mr Hanson has helped his oldest methamphetamine-using daughter "to higher ground" and she is no longer involved with the drug.

But his younger daughter, Krista, is soon to be sentenced for selling P to undercover police officers from the house where she was serving a home detention sentence for dealing P.

Mr Holmes told Monday night's audience that P breaks hope, it breaks expectations and it breaks hearts.

The dynamic media man told a compelling tale of the ravages of methamphetamine on himself and his family.

Without pulling punches, his impromptu speech was punctuated with many "blah, blah, blahs" because, as he said himself, it's a story he's told and also a story he's heard so many times before.

"My beautiful little girl was dragged into the secret world of P and became caught up in the bad, bad company the drug keeps," Holmes said.

"She lost weight, her friends changed, she became paranoid and she couldn't get out of bed.

"She lied and she stole, she sold everything that wasn't bolted to the floor to fuel what I later heard was a $1000-a-day habit.

"She was arrested and fronted before the courts alongside the dregs of society on a Monday and all I could think was she wasn't brought up for that."

He told the captive audience his daughter was the subject of all discussions and the centre of all decisions until he decided to take his life back.

"When people mentioned Millie, as they always did, I had to say thank you for asking but I'm not talking about it any more - and we eventually got our lives back," Mr Holmes said.

"I had to love her from afar because only she could sort out the s*** she had got herself into."

He urged people dealing with P addicts not to let their lives get stolen by the drug.

Mr Holmes said, as well as detoxification and residential programmes for P users, kids needed to understand that P was uncool.

"It's s****, it's evil and it's pernicious - it's designed to pull you into its world."

Also speaking at the Whakatane Rotary West fundraiser were Pat Buckley from Amped4life, Mike Williams from the Stellar Trust and Whakatane Senior Sergeant Bruce Jenkins.

Mr Buckley is a former drug addict who began his own two-and-a-half-year road to recovery at Whakatane's Bethel House 12 years ago.

Amped4life supports schools, industry and the community to provide solutions to substance use and addiction problems while The Stellar Trust, established in November 2008 by the Rotary Club of Auckland East, addresses the side effects on society of P.

The main object of the trust is to raise money from grants and  activities to fund programmes that will in time lead to a major reduction in the use of P, particularly by younger people.
 

Whakatane West Rotary vice president Tony Bonne, the driving force behind the evening, said the Eastern Bay could be P-free as long as the community took responsibility for making it so.