Lamar Odom’s daughter, Destiny has said that she will not touch drugs in her life, after watching her father, Lamar Odom struggle with addiction for years. She said she’s  strongly hoping that her growing up story with a father struggling with addiction can one day help other children in the same situation.


“When someone is on drugs there is really not much that you can do except just tell them that you love them and that you’re here for them,” she says in the new People/Entertainment Weekly (PEN) feature, Surviving A Father’s Addiction: Lamar Odom’s Family Speaks Out. “You can’t force an addict to get better. They have to want it themselves.”

 “I think he was meant to be here because of me and my brother,” Destiny tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “It sounds like a cheesy movie, but I think that everything happens for a reason.”

“I used to worry that my dad’s addiction was my own fault, but after talking to therapists and drug specialists, you just know the way that an addict’s brain is chemically wired,” says Destiny. “They can love you, they would do anything for you, but at the end of the day, there’s a chemical dependency on drugs.”

She added: “When your parent’s an addict and they get clean, it’s like a whole new world. When he’s clean, he’s more able to see the pain that he’s caused.”

Destiny says her father’s struggles have also taught her about how she wants to live her own life.

“After seeing my dad struggle with addiction,” she says, “I don’t ever want to touch a drug in my life.”