House of Hope was first recommended to Luukia seventeen years ago. With a messy family life further complicated by her own self medication, Luukia entered HOH and lived there for four months, trying to work the program, but she was not ready. She soon picked up drugs again, and her life spiraled downwards quickly.

Many years later Luukia remembered her experience at HOH and returned there. This time she was ready. Like many alcoholics, Luukia grew up with an alcoholic parent and difficult childhood. To get away from her problematic mother, she left home in Hawaii at the age of 15 and moved to Seattle to live with an aunt.

Four years later she married, moved to L.A., and briefly tried a career in nursing. She had three daughters, and loved taking care of her daughters as a stay-at home mother. However, that dream was shattered when her daughters were six, eight and ten, and mistakenly taken from her through a custody battle that stipulated no visits in the fine print. At the time, she did not realize she would not be able to see them at all, or ever regain custody.

Once she understood that her dream of motherhood was shattered, Luukia pursued a dangerous life filled with even more drugs and alcohol, DUI’s, and arrests. Couch surfing, she moved from friend to friend, and from one dangerous relationship to another. She tried out different rehabs, but without hope. She was even arrested for assault with a deadly weapon which turned out to be a high heel shoe!

With all self-esteem lost, Luukia came back to House of Hope in October 2018. This time she entered the new outpatient program and was willing to do the work required. She feels that being in outpatient kept her accountable. She learned to face life head on, testing the new skills she learned at the House.

She also believes two things helped her the most: Awakenings, the morning meeting at the House, and the EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) therapy she received. EMDR has been used successfully for PTSD victims, especially veterans and victims of sexual assault.

Using this experience, Luukia now volunteers with Waymakers, a crisis center in Orange County for victims of sexual assault. She is also student at UCI working on a degree in psychological science, hoping to become a counselor herself. Today her life is filled with God, prayer and nature. She is back on track. “Relapse” she says, “is no longer part of my life” and one day she hopes to get her daughters, now aged 23, 20 and 19, back in her life.