How a Kiwi woman nearly lost everything to meth addiction - and found her way back

At the start of 2022 nutritionist Lisa Reid was fit and healthy. She had a good relationship and two bichon shitzu dogs, Opie and Donnie. She was running a successful business and building a house.

Months later, one impulsive decision led to a crippling meth addiction.

Methamphetamine - also known as P in New Zealand - stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, causing people to feel elated, alert and confident until it wears off, when users experience side-effects including depression and anxiety.

Water testing results from across New Zealand showed methamphetamine use doubled to 32.4kg per week between June and December 2024 - the highest volume seen since national wastewater testing began in 2018. While consumption has increased nationwide, the worst-affected regions are Northland and central Hawke's Bay.

According to the New Zealand Drug Foundation, the rise in meth consumption is due to a rise in social, employment and housing issues, and a cost of living crisis, as people try to escape reality. The estimated social harm cost of meth use is estimated at $34.6 million per week, or $1.8 billion per year.

Reid had a perfectly normal childhood, and says she was “well loved”. She went on to study nutrition and psychology before setting up her own nutrition business in Gore, where she saw patients both privately and in partnership with a local medical centre.

“Things were going great,” says Reid, now 29. “I had a reputation for being clean, green, healthy and fit, with everything figured out. I’d even started building a house with my partner.”

But in March 2022, after her relationship ended, then aged 26, Reid got drunk at a party. “I’d never been much of a drinker, but when we split it felt like my world had fallen apart. So I went to the party to try and cheer myself up, and when someone offered me meth, I took it.”

Taking meth was a good distraction. “I felt happy and numb; it made me forget my life was crumbling.” So the following weekend she took meth again. Before long, weekend “dabbling” escalated. “At first I took it in the evenings, but I’d get hot and cold sweats so I started taking it before work, and have more at work to try to stave off the terrible brain fog. I didn’t feel normal unless I was on it.”

By May, she knew she had to stop, but she couldn’t. “It happened so fast; I feel like I blinked and suddenly I was addicted.”

Meth ruled Reid’s world. “People were being referred to me for help with their nutrition; my day job was teaching people about health, but my own was declining rapidly. I was smoking every chance I got.”

Within two months, she’d spent her life savings - $30,000 – on drugs. When another $30,000 in loans ran out, she stole money from her parents, taking out loans in their names without their knowledge to fund her next hit.

In the grip of addiction, Reid cut herself off. “I stopped seeing family and friends, and I became completely unreliable at work. I’d cancel or not turn up to see patients, and I’d miss handovers at the medical centre with the doctors and nurses who’d referred patients to me – I’d spin whatever story I could so I could stay home and take drugs.”

Meth came before everything – even her beloved dogs. “My whole life revolved around Opie and Donnie, but in that state I couldn’t look after them,” she says. “If they had stayed with me something bad would probably have happened to them.”

Reid finds it hard to recognise that version of herself now. “I was living in the house my ex and I had built together as he’d left town – he wasn’t happy about it but he wasn’t there, and I wanted to stay there as long as possible so I just took drugs.

“I wouldn’t sleep or eat for days – once I didn’t sleep for a week, which made me hallucinate. Meth made me numb, so when it wore off, I’d take more,” she says. In June 2022, her grandfather died - she ignored his passing. “I didn’t even go to his funeral. All I did was stay home and do meth.”

That November, after her no-shows and erratic behaviour at work had become a regular occurrence, Reid was asked to take a drug test – which she refused. “I figured I’d rather lose my job for refusing than producing a positive one,” she says.

She was thousands of dollars in debt, with a mortgage from the house build and no income, and drug dealers were chasing her for money. “I’d led a really sheltered life, but was now in a world where guns and knives were pulled; one guy even tried to overdose me on fentanyl. It was very, very scary.”

In January 2023, Lisa sold her car for $5000 – and smoked it all in a month. “I remember sitting on the bedroom floor of the beautiful house we’d built, thinking – how did I get here?” she recalls tearfully. “I’d burned every bridge, and was out of ways to get meth. The only way forward was to sell myself, and I’d rather have died.” So at 3am on 8 February, 2023, supported by her new partner, Lisa made the courageous decision to quit.

Lisa spent a week in withdrawal, fighting cravings by eating lollies, sometimes in her sleep. “I didn’t shower for days – I’d get up, go to the toilet, throw up and go back to bed. I wanted to die. But my partner was amazing – he was determined to do anything he could to help me get clean.” Lisa’s partner called her father, who stayed with her that night.

“My parents had cut me off some time ago – they had to,” she recalls. “But I always knew deep down they’d always be there, and they were, even when I was at rock bottom.”

Despite the challenges, Reid stayed off meth. “The withdrawal process is awful – I nearly relapsed several times,” she says. “That first week I felt like my intestines were twisting, my hands shook uncontrollably and there was this huge weight across my shoulders. The cravings don’t stop – I still get them now. But the mental withdrawal is terrible – you get awful intrusive, negative thoughts that eat away at you. I felt suicidal – like it would be easier not to be alive than go through this.”

Despite everything, Reid remained on track. “Dealers and addicts aren’t your friends – if you don’t have it or want it, you don’t hear from them, so it was easy to keep away from them. That’s not a world where there’s respect or friendship,” she explains.

Reid continued in the right direction, even taking a temporary job as a wool handler - “that was brutal, but I’d be so tired at the end of the day I’d go straight to sleep which was perfect” – so she could begin paying off some of her debts. But a month later, her partner had a serious workplace accident. “A knife went through his leg, and I thought he was going to die. That’s when reality hit me like a ton of bricks.”

Luckily the injury wasn’t life-threatening, and after several days in hospital her partner was sent home to recover. “I had to give up my job to look after him, and I couldn’t leave the house as I was terrified something would happen to him … I was trapped inside the house again, just like I had been when I was an addict, and I spiralled into deep depression,” she says. “I gained 20kg and hated going out in public, I was financially crippled, and mentally very unwell.”

While her partner recovered, Reid lived on unhealthy food, using prescription medications to help her sleep. “I didn’t want to be awake – I hated myself, and everyone in Gore knew my story,” she admits. Something had to change. “When I was stuck in the house again I’d hit my second rock bottom. I couldn’t keep living like that, so my ex and I sold the house we’d built, and I moved to Nelson with my current partner for a fresh start.”

Starting afresh didn’t come easily.

“Mentally and physically, it was super hard – I didn’t have any motivation, but I was sick of feeling like I was never going to be fixed,” she says. She got a job as a trainee embalmer, and gradually began exercising again. “Eating healthily and training again saved my life,” she says.

Today, Donnie and Opie are home with Reid, and she has paid off over $50,000 of debt through her work – she’s now a fully trained embalmer, and runs her own nutrition business again.

“A part of me feels helping the deceased look good for their families is a way of giving back,” she says.

“It’ll take a while to come to terms with the damage I’ve done to myself and others, but I want to show there’s always a way forward after addiction.”