Luka's Story

Kelly, North Carolina

I did not send my 15-year-old son to residential treatment in California for 39 days because he was caught smoking or vaping. I sent him because he had a substance abuse problem. The substance was Juul.

Like millions of other parents, we did not see this coming. When Luka entered high school, he was a straight A student. He was friendly and outgoing and had a great sense of humor. He was active in Boy Scouts and sports, loved camping and fishing, and had interesting hobbies. He was an all-around great kid!

All of that changed very quickly. He went to his first high school football game and in an effort to fit in and gain acceptance from the upperclassmen, he took a hit off a Juul. Life went downhill from there. It didn’t take long before we were seeing drastic changes in him – everything from extreme anger, explosive outbursts and anxiety to plummeting grades and loss of interest in all sports and activities. Overnight, the child we raised had disappeared. We were living with a kid who was completely dependent on Juul to self-medicate his Juul-induced anxiety. He was an addict.

We battled his addiction for over a year and then, after a long night of Juuling, Luka had a grand mal seizure. He was fortunate to recover without any lasting damage, but it further proved to us that the addiction was out of his control and there was no one to turn to for help. Our son needed treatment that didn’t exist and we didn’t have time to wait for research to catch up!

We were fortunate to find an adolescent residential treatment center in California that would treat Juul addiction the same as any other drug addiction. It took 3 weeks of treatment with ZERO access to Juul before we finally heard the voice of a boy we hadn’t seen or heard in more than a year. And after 39 days, he thanked me for sending him for treatment.